


For Whom The Wedding Bells Toll

by Weevilo707



Series: Every Important Day Is A Disaster [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Humor, Multi, Wedding Planning, Weddings, lup and barold have no fucking clue what they're doing, sequel to 'The Worst Candlenights Ever'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-11 01:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13513878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Ever since Candlenights, things had been fucking fantastic. The IPRE program was going great, Taako was actually goddamn happy for once, they hadn't heard hide nor hair of their asshole relatives since their grand exit, and she was engaged to Barry fucking Bluejeans. Realistically, this should be the happiest Lup had ever been in her entire life.Except engaged meant wedding, which meant wedding planning. Lup had no earthly idea what she was doing.Maybe if she sent the invitations out in wingdings, no one would show up.





	1. Chapter 1

Lup for all intents and purposes  _ should have _ been in a pretty damn good mood. The past couple months had been great. Fucking fantastic, and she wasn't even being sarcastic with that. The IPRE program they were in was going great, and was proving more and more to be a fast track to her fucking dream job. It was tough but she got bored if there wasn't a challenge. 

Taako had been over the goddamn moon since he started dating Kravitz. It'd only been a couple of weeks so far, but in comparison to the other semi-serious relationships he'd had in the past there was no contest. Taako kept insisting that he wasn’t acting any different than he usually was and had no idea what she was talking about, but Lup knew her brother. She didn’t even need to see how smiley and giggly he was when he talked to or about Kravitz to know that he was like, genuinely happy. Which made  _ her _ happy. Taako deserved good shit like that, even if he didn’t always believe it, and Kravitz had actually proven himself to be good shit.

She was happy, her brother was happy, they hadn’t heard hide nor hair of their shitty asshole relatives since their grand exit at Candlenights.

Shit was great.

And  _ yet. _

And yet, she was currently hunched over the kitchen table, having a goddamn panic attack over font types.

There were so many fucking options. Why were there this many options? Did this even matter? They were just invitations did anyone even look at this shit? She’d gotten a perfect score on her entrance exam for the IPRE why couldn’t she understand  _ font types?! _

‘Babe, babe I don’t know what I’m doing. Can we just use wingdings?’ she texted Barry, trying to keep herself from trashing all of the options laid out in front of her. She'd texted him many times before this, and he was trying to help but she got the feeling he had as much of a clue about what they were doing as she did.

‘Lup we actually want people to be able to come to the wedding.’ Barry sent her back almost immediately. Which yeah, she guessed that was a fair point, but it wasn’t helping her much here.

‘Do we?’ she sent back, and there was a much longer pause than she was used to before he answered.

‘Put it in the maybe pile.’

‘Babe I love you.’

Okay well that wasn’t problem solved, but it was something. Wingdings went into the maybe pile, along with Jokerman, Broadway, Comic Sans (a given), and Ravie. Also like, a couple a more professional looking ones that Barry had picked out. Those were all a little dramatic and Gothic and she could definitely get behind them if she needed to.

But even so, she still couldn’t see how this was like, important? Except  _ of course _ it was important, they were getting married and that was a huge fucking deal (as Taako kept reminding her at every goddamn opportunity) and so everything related to it was important and had to be perfect because that’s what Barry deserved.

Except she knew Barry and knew that he wouldn’t care about something like that. Barry let her put wingdings in the maybe pile, it wasn't a big deal to him. So that didn’t explain why she was so goddamn hung up on all of this.

“Whoa okay, what are you doing? Who let you at the wedding shit on your own?” Taako said as he came into the apartment and saw her at the kitchen table with paper scattered everywhere. His class had ended a couple hours ago, so she figured he went to meet up with Kravitz afterwards. Despite the fact that she was the one getting married, those two were definitely all caught up in the honeymoon phase. It was sickeningly adorable.

“I am an adult and it’s my wedding, I can do  _ some _ things on my own. It’s not like I’m not going to run them by Barry first anyway,” Lup said. Taako came over, quickly scanning over all of the different font types and invitation styles and color choices and the frankly overwhelming amount of decisions for a little piece of paper to let people know a thing was happening.

“Lup, why are you making the invitations?” Taako asked, his voice noticeably blank.

“So people know to come to the wedding? Duh,” she said because uh, that was a little obvious, right? That’s what invitations were for. She was pretty sure she couldn't have goofed that one up.

“Lup, have you picked a date yet? Or a venue? Or like, a color scheme or a theme for the invitations to match? You kinda need those things before you go making the invitations,” he said, and Lup felt her stomach sink as she slowly let her head fall down onto the table.

“Taako, I don’t know what I’m  _ doing,” _ she whined helplessly. She felt Taako pat her head and she could hear papers being shuffled somewhat. She didn't bother to look up to see if he'd messed up her maybe pile. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

“Yeah yeah, that’s kinda obvious. Don’t worry, cha’ boy’s got you covered,” he said, and Lup reluctantly lifted her head up from her moping position on the table.

“So you get a boyfriend and now you’re an expert wedding planner? And you complain about Barry and me moving too fast,” she teased, mainly to get her mind off of her glaring failure in forethought. Taako huffed, finished stacking the invitation papers she’d had scattered about.

“Okay first of all those two things have nothing to do with each other. I just recognize the fact that you need to have an event to  _ invite _ people to before sending out invitations,” he said, and okay Lup could see the flaws in that clear as day now. There was just a lot of fucking stuff to do and invitations seemed like the easiest thing to tackle.

“Alright, I goofed that one. What do you suppose we do first then?” she asked, and Taako chewed his lip some as he seemed to think it over.

“Uh, fantasy google it?” he suggested after a moment. Which, yeah, yeah okay, that might actually be a good idea. She might've been avoiding it out of stubborn pride, but she was well past that now.

Ten minutes later, and Lup had decided that it was not in any way, shape, or form a good idea.

“Sixteen  _ months _ ahead of time? Taako, fuck I don’t want to be planning this for over a year,” she said, scanning over the ‘Ultimate Wedding Planning Checklist’ they’d found.

“We can move faster than that, fucking hell I’m sure that’s an exaggeration. Uh, okay, budget is probably a good thing to start with, and the wedding party. Wait, Lup what am  _ I _ going to be in your wedding? Like, I can’t be the best man and the maid of honor  _ and _ give you away all at the same time,” Taako said, and Lup rolled her eyes as she scrolled further down the checklist.

“Who even said you’re gonna be in the wedding,” she teased, ignoring Taako’s offended gasp.

“Well if that’s how you feel you can plan this on your own,” he said, crossing his arms and pouting.

“We’ll figure it out. Uh, I guess do you want to wear a dress or a suit? If you want a suit you can be the best man,” she said.

“Depends, is Barry gonna pick the types of suits? Because if so there’s no way in hell I’m wearing one,” he said. Lup was pretty sure he was against letting Barry pick because of the whole jean suits they’d joked about having, which like, Lup would let him do that. To be fair, she’d pretty much let Barry do anything.

“Jeeze, you need to book an officiant like a year in advance? We can tell Merle to do it right?” Lup said, not actually bothering to answer Taako’s question about the suits.

“Yeah no, fuck that. I’m pretty sure we could roll up to Merle’s house right now and tell him we needed him to marry you and Barry in ten minutes and he’d be good,” Taako said, and she didn’t doubt that in the slightest. Honestly, Lup didn’t even think he’d need the ten minutes, but the point still stood.

Lup started scrolling down faster, scanning bits and pieces and good god this list was long. Why was this list so long?

“Wait, are save-the-date cards the same as invites? We need to send invites for the dress rehearsal too?” she asked, gnawing on her bottom lip as she continued to read more and more.

“Why are you so hung up on invites right now?” Taako asked, and Lup shrugged, practically throwing her arms up into the air.

“I don’t  _ know! _ None of this makes any sense Taako,” she whined, letting her head flop down onto the laptop keyboard. Glancing up, she read about bit of the checklist. “This thing wants us to submit a  _ newspaper wedding announcement,” _ she mumbled, absolute defeat in her voice. Taako sighed heavily, snatching the laptop out from under her before she could look any more.

“Lup, holy shit, you don’t gotta follow this thing by the letter. We can cut out all the bullshit, that’s what we’re  _ good _ at,” Taako said, and she pulled her arms up to hide her head in them, still pouting.

“Nope, wedding’s off. I can’t do this,” she said, sounding suitably hopeless with this whole scenario.

“What the fuck, I’ve never heard you give up on something so fast in your entire life. Usually you take this kind of bullshit as a  _ challenge _ , what the hell’s with you?” Taako asked. Lup stopped hiding her face and groaned, leaning back in the chair almost to the point of it falling back before letting it land back on all four legs.

“I don’t know, okay? It’s stupid, this whole thing is stupid,” she said, and it was true. She didn’t know what the fuck was messing with her so bad. She didn’t think she was the type to get fucking cold feet or anything like that, especially at the initial stages of planning. Taako was right too, usually she saw something impossible like this and her instinct was to barrel full steam ahead and force shit to work in her favor, not whine and give up at the drop of a hat.

“Lup, you know it doesn’t have to be perfect right? Like most of this shit is a buncha nonsense I know you don’t actually give a crap about, and I  _ know _ Barold won’t give a shit. As long as he’s married to you at the end of the day he’ll think it’s perfect,” Taako said, and Lup groaned loudly once again, hiding her face in her hands.

“I  _ know! _ He’s so fucking sweet I could walk down the aisle in a fucking rainbow onesie and a baseball cap and he’ll still look at me like I’ve descended straight from heaven and he’s so  _ good _ Taako! I know he’ll be happy with anything but he deserves the best,” she said. When she glanced back over at Taako he looked fondly amused.

“Good god, you two are just like,  _ disgusting _ with how sweet you are. Seriously, I’m getting nauseous over here listening to you,” he teased.

“You don’t get to talk anymore bro. I could hear you giggling at your phone until three in the goddamn morning last night,” Lup said, and Taako shrugged, trying to look unphased by that.

“You don’t know what I was laughing at,” he said, like it wasn’t blatantly obvious.

“Mhmm, sure I don’t,” she said with a heavy layer of sarcasm in her voice.

_ “And anyway,” _ Taako quickly shifted topics back, “you need to stop freaking out. Just like, go talk to Barry about it. I know you two are fucking awful at the whole  _ talking _ thing but turns out it actually helps sometimes,” he said, and Lup scoffed at that, amused.

“Because you’re so fucking good at using your words, you would know,” she said.

“I asked Kravitz out the very next day you can’t say I didn’t get to the point,” Taako said, which yeah she guessed that was true. She’d love to tease her brother about how insistent he was that Kravitz wasn’t interested, but that hadn’t exactly lasted very long.

“Listen, just go talk to your  _ fiance. _ Figure out what you actually fucking want out of a wedding and then we can decide how we’re gonna plan it,” he said, and Lup had to reluctantly admit that he had a point.

“Ugh, fine. I’ll ask him to meet up after he gets back from his class, happy?” she said, and okay, the idea of figuring this out with Barry was somewhat reassuring. She was still somewhat tempted to call this whole thing off, but no, she wouldn’t want to do that to Barry. She  _ wanted _ to get married to Barry, she just didn't want all the stuff that came before that.  

Taako nodded, seeming satisfied with that for now. He looked back at the laptop, seeming to scan through the whole list of wedding stuff some more. She couldn’t actually see the list from this angle though and that was probably a good thing. It was fucking stupid that she kept getting overwhelmed by this but here they were.

“Okay Lulu, I’m sorry but this list is a load of bullshit, we are not following this list,” Taako said with a frown.

“What’s wrong with it? Besides fucking everything?” she asked, pulling out her phone to ask Barry when he was good to meet up. Sometimes he’d end up staying after class or went to work some after hours with the IPRE stuff.

“It’s  _ telling you,  _ fucking demanding that you use blue nameplates for boy guests and pink for girls. Which first of all, I guess everyone else doesn’t get a nameplate. Secondly, who the fuck said that would match with the color scheme at all? Like, what if I wanted something with black, gold and maybe like, purple accents? That would clash like fuck,” Taako complained, and Lup was pretty sure he was equally upset for both reasons.

“Yeah that’s a buncha bullshit,” she agreed, and okay, maybe there was a lot of dumb shit like that they could cut out. Like, she didn’t need to worry about an officiant, she had Merle. She didn’t have to worry about food, Taako would disown her if she didn’t let him handle that. She didn't need to tell the goddamn newspaper when she was getting hitched.

“That’s an interesting color scheme though, was that one right off the dome? I think you could pull it off,” she said casually, reading Barry’s text back to her. He said he’d head over right after class, and she was pretty damn thankful for that.

“Well yeah, I could pull off anything,” Taako said, and then he actually seemed to think it over some. “It would look nice though, would have to be careful to make sure the gold and purple would work good together,” he said, and Lup hummed in agreement,

“Kravitz looks good in black and gold,” said said, and Taako was quickly nodding at that.

“Yeah no, it would definitely work. It’s fucking hilarious that the whole goth prince aesthetic was  _ hardly _ even a joke, but it looks good as fuck on him so who cares,” Taako said, and Lup couldn’t stop her wide as all hell grin when Taako actually looked over at her. It seemed to take a few long, wonderful seconds for Taako to process  

“Oh my  _ god! _ Fuck you! Kravitz and I aren’t getting married!” Taako snapped at her, all huffy and offended. She was doubled over laughing now, and a lot of the anxiety from before was at least pushed to the back of her mind for now.

“Hey, you’re the one who started planning out a color scheme, not me,” she teased.

“Whatever, your boy gonna come get you so I don’t have to deal with this blatant and vicious mocking or what?” he asked, and Lup rolled her eyes but nodded.

“Yeah, Barry’s gonna come by and we’re gonna try and figure out this whole wedding thing,” she reassured him.

“Good, because you definitely need the help,” Taako said, and Lup crossed her arms, taking offense at that.

“I would’ve figured it out! And besides, Barry  _ was _ helping me, he signed off on all the front types I put into the maybe pile,” she said, and it was true. She’d kinda been blowing up his phone some, which she typically tried not to do while he was in class but she was also having a crisis over  _ fucking front types. _

“Barry. Was  _ helping _ you make the invitations, to the event you haven’t planned yet in the slightest?” Taako asked, speaking very slowly.

_ “Yesss?” _ Lup said, feeling the way her brother was very understandably judging the fuck out of her and Barry.

“Oh boy. Oooh hachi machi, this is going to take  _ a lot _ of work.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah i absolutely decided to go ahead with the sequel blupjeans wedding fic. I'm still blown away with the reception worst candlenights got, and i'm probably gonna at least do a prequel thing with the crystal kingdom fiasco for this series as well at some point. Once again, the amount of chapters I have listed for this fic is a _rough suggestion._ Hopefully it won't be too much longer than six, but I do imagine this fic'll be a bit shorter than worst candlenights was. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


	2. Chapter 2

Barry J. Bluejeans slipped his phone back into his pocket after telling Lup he’d meet her as soon as he was out of class. He could tell from her frequent slightly panicked sounding texts that she wasn’t as in control of the situation as she tried to appear. He’d already been planning to ask if she wanted him to come over tonight, but it was nice to have her ask instead.

Taako had probably come home and had a talk with her or something.

A part of him was tempted to head out now, he already had more than a solid enough grasp on today’s topic to leave whenever he wanted. Technically, he hadn’t even needed to come in, but he enjoyed the class. There were only about fifteen minutes left until they were dismissed though, and Lup had sounded considerably more calm in her last message, so it was fine to wait. If Lup needed him right away he knew she would've said so.

Even still, Barry started packing up his stuff so he could leave as soon as class ended. He hadn’t been taking particularly good notes today anyway, what with stopping every few minutes to text Lup back. He didn’t mind that at all though, and right now he was content to sit and listen to the end of the professor’s lecture.

“Are you leaving?” Lucas asked in a whisper, not quite looking up from where he was sort of ducked behind an open textbook. Not the one for this class, one of the things Barry particularly liked about this one was that there wasn’t any required, the bulk of the work was done hands on in the lab.

“No,” he said simply, because he wasn’t yet.

“Who were you texting so much? Was it Taako? Can you ask him to give me back those lab supplies he took? It’s been over a year and I kinda want them back,” Lucas asked. Barry didn’t pay him much mind, continuing to mostly focus on the end of the lesson.

“It wasn’t Taako, you can ask him yourself if you want them back,” he said. He was pretty well aware that Lucas was asking him specifically so he wouldn’t’ have to talk to Taako. He couldn’t blame him for being afraid of Taako, most people should be at least somewhat cautious of both the twins.

“Can’t you ask next time you see him?” Lucas asked.

“Uh, I think the professor is looking over here,” Barry said, and as expected Lucas ducked back behind his textbook. It was a convenient and easy way to get him to be quiet, and Barry tried not to abuse it too often. Try probably being the key word there.

Well, it wasn’t his fault Lucas kept trying to sneak into classes after getting expelled. Barry never gave him away, so he guessed that was nice enough for him.

It wasn’t long then that class ended, and packing up early also meant that Barry was up and out of the classroom before the doorways got all blocked up. Luckily Lup and Taako’s apartment wasn’t too far from campus, and it didn’t take him long to walk the familiar path to their home. He had a key, so once he got there Barry let himself in.

“Fucking finally Barold, talk about taking your sweet time,” Taako complained as soon as he stepped through the front door.

“I had class you know,” he said, dropping his bag neatly by the front door so it was out of the way. Despite the fact that much of the apartment looks like a discordant mess to the untrained eye, Taako wasn’t shy about getting on people who made it an even bigger disaster.

Barry couldn’t count the number of times him and Lup had gotten carried away with some idea and ended up with huge messes sprawled along several rooms. It usually ended with Taako badgering and chasing them around with wooden spoons until they cleaned most everything up.

“Whatever, your fiance desperately needs you,” he said, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth Lup started protesting.

“I was doing fine! Babe, I was doing fine, Taako is blowing it out of proportion,” Lup said.

“Lulu, tell him the important thing about the invitations you forgot,” Taako told her, and now Barry was curious. Lup had been texting him about the invitations during class. She sounded a little overwhelmed by the options but he couldn’t think of anything off the bat that they were missing.

“We need an event to invite people to before we make the invitations,” Lup mutter out, quick and quiet, clearly not wanting to admit the oversight. Which was… huh.

“Okay. Okay, that one slipped by me too. That one’s also my bad,” he said, and he could see the look of unsurprised resignation on Taako’s face at that.

“Completely fucking hopeless, the both of you,” he said, coming over and grabbing Barry by the arm to drag him over to sit on the couch with Lup. Then he ran off to his room with a clear purpose, although Barry couldn’t be sure what that was yet.

“That wasn’t our brightest moment,” he said sheepishly. Lup huffed and slumped into the back of the couch, arms crossed.

“We would’ve figured it out eventually. I was just designing the invites, not what was going  _ on _ them,” she said, and he guessed that was fair. After a moment Taako stormed back into the room, slapping a wedding magazine down on the coffee table in front of them.

“Here, use this as a jumping off point. At the very least, you should be able to figure out what you  _ don’t _ want,” he said. Lup picked up the magazine, quickly flipping through it, not looking at anything in particular yet.

“Taako, why do you have this? Is there something you’re not telling us?” she asked, a teasing smile spreading across her face. They were all real happy that Taako’s new relationship with Kravitz seemed to be going well, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t mess with him some.

“I have it because my dearest sister and best friend are getting  _ married _ and I apparently have to do all the work around here, as usual,” Taako insisted.

“Never too early to start planning. I’ve been thinking about marrying Lup for like a year now,” Barry said, glancing at the pages of the magazine as Lup flipped through them. It all seemed like pretty stereotypical white wedding stuff.

“Holy fucking shit, no. I’m not planning  _ anything _ ,” Taako insisted. Barry could see the thoughts turning in his head before he turned back to look at him. “Barold, you two have only been dating for like eight months now.”

“I know,” he said with a shrug. He’d already put that information out there. He knew these two well enough to know there was no denying or hedging away from stuff after they were put on the table, the only thing to do was to own it.

“Aw,  _ babe,” _ Lup said, and she sounded genuinely touched. Barry couldn’t help the goofy, sappy smile that spread across his face at that. Neither of them were particularly surprised by the loud groan of disgust Taako let out after a moment. Barry was equally as unsurprised when he started to leave, but Lup quickly sat up, looking after her brother.

“Hey, where are you going? You said you were gonna help us out here,” she said, waving the wedding magazine at him.

“And I am. You two stay right there, have a little talk-sess, figure out what kinda shindig you want this thing to be. Once y’all got that down  _ then _ cha’ boy can impart his wisdom on how to make shit actually happen,” Taako said, grabbing a bag and his phone as he headed towards the door. “I’ll be at Krav’s, lemme know when you got shit figured out,” he added, out of the apartment before either of them could say anything else.

“No good lazy brat. He just wanted an excuse to go hang out with his boyfriend for a couple more hours,” Lup complained, tossing the magazine back onto the coffee table.

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that. He kinda has a point though, I guess we  _ should _ try to figure this whole thing out,” Barry said. Picking the magazine back up, he started to flip through it at a slower pace than Lup had.

“You always gotta be sensible about everything,” Lup said, but there was nothing but fondness in her voice.

“You know for a fact that’s not true,” he said, and a smile started to spread across her face again.

“Yeah,” she agreed simply. Barry smiled back at her for a moment, in a way that he knew would make Taako start fake gagging again if he was still there. Turning to the magazine again, Barry tried to focus back on the task at hand.

“Okay, okay. A wedding. What kind of wedding do we want?” he asked, continuing to flip through the pages, no real idea on where to start.

“Right, yes. We don’t even need Taako’s help we can figure this out in no time. Uh,” Lup said, starting to chew her lip as she thought. Nothing in this magazine was standing out to Barry. It was all pure white dresses (that Lup would look stunning in, but they weren’t  _ her)  _ and identical black suits and bright red roses.

“Well, if its in here we probably don’t want it. Unless uh, unless you want a traditional wedding. We can do that if you want,” Barry said. He’d have a wedding bland enough to match most people’s first impression of him if that was what Lup wanted.

“Babe no, do you really think I’m that boring?” she asked, and yeah, that was about what he’d expected.

“Of course not,” Barry said, putting the magazine down because that wasn’t going to be any more help. “Okay, not traditional then, that’s decided,” he added.

“Fuck yeah, look at us. Making decisions, being all grown adults planning shit,” Lup said, very proud of the one choice they’ve managed to make so far.

“Okay, what do we actually want then? I’m fine with anything you want,” he said.

“I dunno, I’m good with whatever you want,” Lup told him. This sort of dilemma wasn’t exactly unheard of for the two of them. It was quiet between the two of them for a moment, Lup tapping her fingers along the arm of the couch. Barry was running his thumb along the corner of the magazine, turning the pages like a flip book without actually looking at them.

“We’re bad at this,” he said eventually, and Lup flung her head up against the back of the couch with a groan.

“We aaaaare, this is so stupid,” she said. Barry stopped messing with the magazine, slumping back into the couch as well. “I  _ would _ say fuck it, let’s go elope like sensible people, but I’m not about to admit defeat to Taako,” Lup added, and Barry chuckled some at that.

“If that’s the only thing keeping you attached to an actual wedding I’m gonna have to overrule the twin competitiveness here,” Barry said.

“No, okay that’s not the only thing. I mean, Taako would be upset if we didn’t give him an event to cook for. Plus like, a day to force everyone to pay attention and say nice shit about us and shove it in everyone’s face that I get to spend the rest of my life with the world’s most perfect dude is pretty cool too. Oh, also I think wedding gifts are a thing? I want free shit,” Lup said. Barry couldn’t help but laugh some at that, his face tinted a shade red in embarrassment at the compliment.

“I’m the one who should be bragging. You’re perfect,” he said. It was clear with that though that Lup did want to have a wedding, and those probably weren’t even all the reasons why. Which was fine by Barry, more than fine. He appreciated a good party every now and then, he doubted he’d ever be able to keep up with Lup otherwise. That was basically what a wedding was anyway, a big party with some pageantries celebrating the two of them. They just needed to stop over-thinking this.

“That is also true,” Lup said with a smile.

“We could just do the denim thing we were joking about on Candlenights. Denim cloaks, was that it?” he blurted out. It wasn’t a very good idea, but it was an idea and they were kinda strapped for those at the moment. Lup snorted, doubling over in laughter and even if they didn’t go with that one it was worth it to see Lup laughing like that.

“Taako would- oh  _ god, _ he’d fucking kill me. He'd kill me and then he'd kill you, and then he'd kill himself for having to bear witness to it all. He’d be so mad,” she managed between bursts of laughter. After a moment she seemed to settle down some, wiping a few stray tears from her eyes. “So uh, maybe. Put that one in the maybe pile. Even if we scrap the denim thing we should still keep the cloaks,” she said.

“Should I dig out the one I wore at Candlenights, or should we get something new?” he asked, only partially joking. Cloaks didn’t sound like the worst idea. It wasn’t the most important decision they needed to make, but it was something.

“I love that one, and you’re real fucking good at sewing babe. It’s great quality, but that curtain design is hideous and you’re not wearing that,” Lup said. Which yeah okay, Barry could understand that.

“Alright then, uh,” he said, standing up and heading over to his bag he left by the door. Digging around, he found a notebook before heading back to the couch and sitting down again. Flipping to a blank page he wrote ‘Wedding’ at the top, before starting a bullet pointed list. So far the only things he’d written down were

-Cloaks  
-Denim? (maybe)  
-Wingdings (possible invitations)

Lup hovered over his shoulder, reading as he made the very small and slightly ridiculous list.

“These are just ideas, we can cut out and form something that makes sense once we’ve got something to work with I guess,” Barry said, and Lup nodded.

“Yeah no, this is a good idea. Why didn’t I think of this first, bullet points make everything easier,” she said, definitely seeming to be in a better mood about all of this than she was when he got there.

“Uh, what else do we need to figure out? Like, general theme wise I guess,” Barry asked, tapping his pencil on his notebook as he thought.

“Taako asked about color scheme? That might be a good thing to figure out,” she said, and Barry tried to think about this somewhat seriously again. His eyes glanced down at the ring Lup had been wearing since Candlenights, all bright like fire trapped in stone.

“Reds maybe? And um,” he looked down at his own ring for a moment, “and black.” Lup seemed to think it over before smiling widely.

“Sounds goth as fuck babe, I love it,” she said, and so Barry wrote down ‘reds and black’ in his notebook along with everything else. They continued like that for a while, both of them shooting off ideas that the other would almost immediately approve of, or at least end up laughing over. After a few hours they had a few pages of ideas written down and figured it was safe enough to call Taako back to the apartment to see their progress.

When he got back there was a large black feather braided into his hair that wasn’t there before.

“That’s a new look, you keeping up with the goth style?” Lup asked and Taako almost immediately pouted.

“My daughter gave me a  _ present _ okay, of course I’m gonna wear it. Just let me see what you two chucklefucks have been up to,” he said. Barry handed over the notebook without a word, and Taako started scanning through the lists, flipping through pages, his frown deepening as time went on.

“Cloaks, no fucking denim I’m making an executive order on that one,” he mumbled. “Reds and blaaacks,” he hummed, scanning a little further down the lists. “Inside. Old churches. Old  _ castles. Caves,” _ he continued, skipping down some more. “Lighting: many, many candles. And I quote here ‘some cool bones and shit for decor.'" Taako seemed done with their list at that, lowering the notebook and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Are you two getting married, or are you trying to resurrect the fucking dead?” he asked.

“Yes,” Barry answered, not bothering to say any more than that. Lup was doubled over beside him laughing, and Taako had that frustrated look on his face where half of his annoyance was from trying not to burst out laughing as well.

“You two are fucking disasters. I guess I’ll be sure to put the cake down as red velvet with black icing,” Taako said.

“Oh bro, that actually sounds good gimme back the notebook I wanna write that down,” Lup said. Taako threw the notebook over to her more than anything, but Lup still caught it and started writing.

Taako was right, they were pretty fucking huge disasters, and this wedding was probably going to be too.

Barry wasn’t sure if he’d ever been more excited for something in his entire life.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of these disaster children. Barry is fun to write, it's nice getting to actually do his POV in this fic. He's not quite as out there was he was in worst candlenights, because while that was all him, he was still playing it up some. Still a weird weird boy who's excited about his goth wedding.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


	3. Chapter 3

Lup didn’t know what she’d been panicking about before. Planning a wedding was easy. She didn’t need it to be perfect because it was automatically going to be with her and Barry there and all their friends and family and oh god who the fuck was she trying to kid?

Okay, no, no self-defeatist bullshit because that was so not her style. Progress, there had been progress made, she had to focus on that.

She wouldn’t say her and Barry had picked a theme so much as they had picked a goddamn lifestyle. This wedding was going to be them, because what was the fucking point otherwise?

So, they had a theme, and Taako figured that was like, a good portion of what would drive most of the decisions. They had a guest list, that one had been real easy to get down. It was fucking everyone. Of course they were inviting everyone, the hardest part was picking who would actually have positions in the wedding and who would be guests.

There were a few that were obvious. Taako was going to be the maid of honor, cause as much as she loved Barold she was getting her bro for the wedding. Merle was doing the whole actually marrying thing. They still had to ask around to figure out who the best man would be, but they kept flipping coins between Magnus and Lucretia. Ring bearers were a thing, she needed to make a mental note to ask Taako if Angus was too old for that. If not, she was sure Mookie would be down.

There were other positions probably but they were picking out the major ones first (the ones they knew first). They could figure out all the little details at it got closer to the actual event.

Which, they needed to actually figure out exactly when that was. Lup hated it, but she was still kind of using that checklist her and Taako had found online. She modified it somewhat, but it helped to have some sort of guide. She wasn’t letting Taako see that she was using it, but it didn’t really matter.

Most of it was obvious junk that she shouldn’t have needed a checklist for, but it helped her and Barry stay on target. So, figuring out things like budget were annoying but necessary. Even if they had decided the budget to be ‘as little as possible we’re in fucking college what do you want from us?’ it was still something.

Still, the checklist had said that they needed to pick a date and a location pretty early on, so that’s what they were going to do. Her and Barry had the day off, so they were going to go around, look at a few locations. Figure out available dates and make an actual concrete decision to get this ball rolling. They were going to be productive fucking adults and this was going to be fun, and nice, and sickeningly romantic since it was only the two of them.

“So uh, furthest away first and then work our way back?” Lup suggested as she got into the car, Barry nodding. There was a curl of nervousness in her gut that she hated, because she didn’t want to be nervous about this. She was excited, planning this should be exciting.

“Yeah, sounds good to me,” Barry agreed,  starting to pull out of the parking complex. When he put his hands on the steering wheel Lup could get a clear look at the ring he’d been wearing pretty damn constantly since the moment she gave it to him. He only took it off when he had to stick his hands in anything especially dead. She was pretty much the same way with her own ring.

It was a nice thing to see, calmed the stupid fucking nerves inside of her. She was going to marry this nerd and it was going to be great.

The furthest place away was the cave they found. Taako complained for an hour about it because ‘are you going to make me cook in a cave Lup? I’ll do it but fuck you’ until they assured him just the ceremony would be in the cave. They’d keep everything else at a slightly more convenient location.

Of course, that was if they chose the cave, which they hadn’t seen it yet, but it was pretty high up on Lup’s list despite that.

They were quiet as they drove, music filling up the car instead of conversation, and that wasn’t unusual for them. She loved talking to Barry of course, but she didn’t need to fight the quiet constantly. It wasn’t  _ awkward _ around Barry (even if both of them were described as such on many occasions).

When they got to the cave Lup tried to seem excited as she jumped out of the car. It was about as stereotypical  ‘big scary cave’ as one could get, which was good because their exact google search had been ‘big scary caves in my area.’

“Uh, I think there’s a guide who was supposed to meet us,” Barry said as he climbed out of the car. There was a parking lot that they’d pulled into, but there wasn’t like, a toll booth or ranger station or whatever it is people used in these kinds of places.

“Maybe we should go check inside?” Lup asked, and Barry shrugged before starting forward to the cave. She followed after him, taking in the scenery and trying to figure out how it would work if they chose this as the spot. The parking lot wasn’t huge, but it could fit most of their guests, especially with how most of their friends tended to carpool as much as possible. (Taako had a running argument that ‘I can’t drive I’m gay’ that was very much disputed amount their friends, especially Davenport who refused to let that fly as an excuse).

The actual cave entrance was pretty big, and walking inside Lup could imagine lines of chairs facing towards that stand dealie that priests had where they would do the sermon junk. A little stereotypical apart from the location, but they could workshop it. Her excitement was starting to become genuine as they looked around more.

“How far deep do you think they would let us go?” Barry asked, and Lup shrugged, squinting in further. It was nice and bright near the entrance, but it definitely got darker further in. She could see lights strung up along the cave walls though, although they didn’t seem to be on at the moment.

“Dunno, you want to have it further in?” she asked.

“I was just thinking further in would be cool, and we could have like, real torches. I think the cave is open enough that no one would pass out from like, being suffocated by the smoke,” he explained.

“Yeah, definitely don’t want anyone suffocating at the wedding. At least not before the reception,” she agreed. Heading further in, Barry took her arm at this point, and right, no dark vision in humans.

It was also an excuse to get to hold her hand for the most part, although she didn’t mind that by any stretch of the means.

Looking around as they walked, it did seem to be like, a nice cave. Obviously well kept for tours and junk, and the air got cooler the further they went inside. They could spook it up and it could still have a pretty tight atmosphere if they chose to have the wedding here. This could work.

“I think this is a strong maybe babe,” she said, Barry nodding in agreement. It was starting to get hard to see even with her dark vision, so she pulled out her phone and put on the flashlight, doing a quick glance around. Something scurried off into the darkness and Lup felt her smile widen. “Yeah, def a strong maybe. Let’s go find that guide and figure out what kinda deal it would be to book this place,” she said, and they headed back towards the mouth of the cave.

It didn’t take long to find the dude this time, and he was an older man who apologized for missing them when they first showed up. He started going on about the history of the cave and what kind of tours were available and such. He seemed a little surprised by the prospect of having a wedding in it, but quickly rolled with the idea.

When Lup and Barry got back into the car, they had a bunch of brochures with numbers and dates and times scribbled on them for who to call to set up what. Barry stretched to place them into the back seat before starting off to the next destination.

“I’m not sure if something is gonna beat that babe. Taako’ll complain but I think it’ll be worth it,” she said, and he nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I think you’re right, but we’re already out here. We should still check out the other places to get an idea, and uh, cause this is nice. Looking um, looking around with you, and trying to figure this out,” he said. God, it wasn’t fair that this dork could make her heart melt with a simple bit of stuttered out sincerity.

“Yeah, it is,” she agreed.

The next place was a fucking castle, just about as far away as the cave was, but they had to drive some still to get to it. This time, an older elven lady was there to greet them as soon as they pulled into the parking lot.

“Hello hello, lovely to meet you both, my name is Phashell. Were you the couple looking to book the grounds for a wedding?” she asked, sticking her hand out to shake.

“That’s us, what uh, what’cha got going on here? We’re pretty new at all this,” Lup asked, shaking her hand and offering the woman a smile back.

“That’s not a problem at all, I’m here to help as much as I can. If you come with me I can show you the absolutely lovely garden we have out back. You can get the most gorgeous pictures with the castle in the background all amongst the flowers,” she started going on.

“What about inside the castle?” Lup asked. “I mean, a garden sounds nice and all, but the castle is kind the main appeal, right?” she added, and Barry nodded.

“Is there a dungeon?” he asked, and Lup could see the smile on the woman’s face become a bit confused.

“Um, you want to know if there’s a dungeon?” Phashell asked, and Lup nodded vigorously.

“Yeah, hell yeah, do you think we could get set up in there? That’d be sweet,” she said, and the woman seemed to recover after a moment and nod.

“Well, I would be happy to show you the inside of the castle, of course. We have less weddings inside, but there are certainly areas where it would work wonderfully. Um, there are several basement areas, if you’d like to see those as well,” she explained, and so the two of them started to follow her into the castle.

It was a pretty typical castle, from what Lup knew about castles. A lot of areas had been roped off, and most of the rooms they could go through were obviously well set up. Lup couldn’t tell if the furniture and such was recreations or not though. The ones in the roped off areas they were only allowed to look at probably were, but she wasn’t sure about the ones they could actually touch.

“And this here is the gala. When we have indoor weddings this is where they most often take place,” the woman explained, leading them into a large, beautiful room with high ceilings and stained glass windows. The floor seemed to be some sort of marble and had a natural shine to it that was what Lup would describe as ‘very fancy.' The walls and all the ornaments and decor was shades of deep gold and dark, dark red.

“Neat,” Barry said simply, his hands kind of twitching at his side like how he got when he wanted to just kind of inspect everything.

“Very fancy,” Lup agreed, and as they walked into the room their footsteps echoed around them. “I mean, this would be pretty cool. I think like, this could work, if we wanted it, right?” she asked, turning to Barry who nodded.

“Taako would definitely be more in favor of this one,” he said, and he was right there, that was for sure. “You said we could look at the downstairs?” he asked, and Phashell nodded. Lup kind of got the feeling that she was hoping they’d be distracted by the fancy gala room and forget about dungeons.

“Yes of course, follow me,” she said, still as cheery as her job probably demanded.

“Do you think this place is haunted?” Lup asked as they were being lead down slightly too narrow stairs.

“Oh, I’ve been working here for years and I can assure you it’s definitely not haunted. There are silly rumors of course, but you always get those around old buildings like this,” the woman insisted.

“Huh, too bad,” Lup said, and as they got to the bottom of the stairs the door there looked a bit less well kept than the rest of the ones they’d seen so far. Heading inside, it definitely seemed to be some sort of cellar. The newer light fixtures that hung throughout the castle were much more noticeable here, lightbulbs strung wherever needed along the dingy ceiling.

“This is well, this was once a wine cellar, but it is mostly in disuse now. There are several other rooms down here. I’m afraid half of the downstairs area of the castle is in use as storage, but there are a few areas that are free,” she explained. Stepping forward, it was cooler down here, a little musty.

“So, like, a dungeon?” Lup asked, and Phashell hesitantly nodded and started down a side path to a door Lup hadn’t quite noticed before. They watched as she flipped through a ring of several  _ old _ looking keys before pulling one out and opening the door with a loud creak.

It was a long, dark hall, with rolls of cells on each side. Lup’s face lit up as she started inside.

“Oh, this is fucking sweet? Isn’t this sweet babe?” she asked, and it was even colder in here, and the tiny dim lights hanging from the ceiling didn’t do much. She was using more darkvision than anything, and she could see Barry squinting somewhat as he followed her inside. There was a smile on his face though as he stepped in and started looking into one of the cells. They were all empty from what she could tell, and as she got to the end of the hallway there were about twelve in all, six on each side.

Turning back, the realtor lady was sticking by the door. Lup frowned somewhat as she tried to think of how a wedding would work in here. The hallways could definitely work for walking down the isle, but there wasn’t anywhere for everyone else to go.

Barry was looking into one of the cells, inspecting the heavy metal grate door that blocked it off. It was old timey bars, so you could clearly see into the cell.

And a huge smile spread across her face as she got an idea.

“Barry! Babe, Barold, what if we put everyone in the cells? Like, you’ll be here with Merle and I’ll walk up and everyone else can be watching from the cells. Do you think they’ll fit?” she asked, trying to picture in her head if they could fit everyone. Barry quickly took a step back from the one he was inspecting to get a look at all of them. She could see him doing some mental calculations as well as he tried to figure it out.

“It might be a tight squeeze, um, there are a lot of cells though. It would, hm, it might work. Can we uh, do you think they’d let up put up some sconces, for better lighting?” he asked the woman, who’s smile seemed to be completely forced at this point.

“I could- I would have to ask. You want to put your wedding guests in the cells?” she asked and Lup nodded, heading back down the hall to the rest of them.

“I’ve been looking for an excuse to lock away most of our bonehead friends since I met them,” she said, and the woman laughed some at that. It seemed a little forced, but also at least closer to the humor she was used to dealing with.

“I can certainly understand that. Well, um, I’ll have to, I’ll have to ask my superiors if this is, if the dungeon is available for rent. I can try to get you that information as soon as possible,” she said, and Lup nodded.

“That would be wonderful,” she said, letting the woman lead them back up out of the dungeon and towards the brighter, nicer parts of the castle.

Once again, when they got back into the car they had a handful of brochures and people to get in contact with and such that Barry put in another back seat.

“I know I said I don’t think we’d get better than the cave, but fuck, that dungeon would be hilarious. And we could throw Taako a bone by having the after part- the reception in that nice gala,” she said. Taako kept getting on them about calling the reception an after party.

“Yeah I- I definitely liked that one too. I think it’ll be a bit more expensive than the cave, but it might be worth it if we can fit everyone in those cells,” he said.

“Right, uh, how many more do we have to look at?” she asked, leaning over his phone as he started putting in the next place.

“Uh, three more I think, they don’t- I doubt they'll be as nice as these two though. I’m sure it’ll be between these two for the most part,” he said, and Lup nodded. That sounded like it would be right, cave or castle would definitely win out.

The next place they went to was a set of old, decrepit ruins out in a field. They were ancient and haunting and Barry was instantly all over them, and Lup could imagine her family out amongst the fields and ruins at dusk as they got married. 

After that, they went to a grave yard. Honestly, that was the least impressive of the things they saw, but it was still tempting. The caretaker had assured them that ‘weddings and funerals are basically the same thing’ and that they could take on a lot of the work of actually setting things up, which was a relief.

Lastly, they saw a temple, set out by the bay. They actually had to pass by the school to get there from the graveyard, and Lup was surprised they hadn’t heard of it before their venue search. When they got there, the old stonework of the building seemed to almost drip water of its own accord, the inside air smelling more salty and of the sea than the outside somehow. The glyphs carved into the temple were ones neither of them had ever seen before, and there was something unsettling about their triton tour guide.

Even if they didn’t have the wedding here, they both agreed that they needed to come back as soon as fucking possible.

Once they were back in the car, Lup started sorting through all the pamphlets and business cards and information from all the places. As she did, her excitement slowly began to turn over into dread.

“Hey babe?” she asked, and it wasn’t a long ride back to her apartment now.

“Yeah?”

“I have no fucking idea which one to choose.”

“Yeah, I mean- yeah. Fuck, I don’t know either.”

“Why is this so  _ haaard,” _ she whined, and Barry took one hand from the steering wheel to pat at her shoulder.

“We’ll figure it out,” he assured her, and she really did appreciate it.

“Could we just have five weddings?” she asked after a moment of silence.

“No. I love you but no.”

“That’s fair babe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoooly shit i didn't mean to go a month not updating this fic, sorry about that I guess i just got kinda distracted. We're back tho! Lup and barry are still utter disasters who have no idea what they're doing, but damn it they're trying okay. Somehow, I still think this is on track for like 6 chapters? maybe 6 chapters and an epilogue depending on my mood. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed!


	4. Chapter 4

Barry sat at the table with Lup, and they were really trying to narrow this stuff down. It was a pretty tough choice, but they had to make it or else they couldn’t get anything else done.

“Okay, pros and cons. If we do the cave, we’re gonna have to find another place for the reception. Pro, it’s got a lot more space than the dungeon, and it’s cheaper. Con, we can’t lock our family in a dungeon,” Lup said, chewing on her lip as she thought this decision over.

“I’m still kind of partial to that temple too, although it might be too damp to be comfortable,” Barry said, and Lup sighed.

“This is a disaster. We’re never gonna decide,” she groaned, and Barry was almost inclined to agree with her. They weren’t being very decisive right now. They had too many choices and they hadn't expected to like them all as much as they did.

“Okay, okay they’re all good. We just need to pick the one that’ll be the most comfortable I guess. We want this to be fun after all,” he said, trying to focus them both. They had to pick something, because if they didn’t by the end of the night Taako said he was going to book one for them and not say which until after.

“Right, okay you’re right. Ease narrows it down, the dungeon is great but it's a little too complicated I guess. That lady never even got back to us about if we’d be allowed down there for the thing or not anyway,” Lup said, and Barry nodded. It hadn’t been too long since they’d toured everywhere, but he kind of suspected that lady was hoping she wouldn’t have to deal with them again if she never called them back. She might actually get her wish with that too.

“The easiest ones are probably the cemetery, the ruins, and the cave. The temple’s good but it’s kind of out of the way and hard to find,” Barry said, and Lup nodded in agreement.

“So that leaves three. Fuck yeah, look at us figuring this shit out. I guess out of those the cave would still be the most fun to have everyone in,” she said. Barry felt like she was right about that.  Sure, he had a particular soft spot for those ancient ruins they’d visited. If they picked those though he’d be too anxious about his family completely trashing them by accident to enjoy the evening.

“I think the cave is a good idea, it’s ya know, kinda like a blank canvas we can work with,” he said, and Lup was smiling brightly now. He could honestly stare at her happy like that for eternity.

“Hell yeah, we’ll spruce it up real nice, and we can throw Taako a bone and let him help pick where the reception can be to make up for it,” she said, and he grinned at that. They kept telling Taako he wouldn’t have to actually cook in the cave, but he kept complaining about that anyway.

“One less thing for us to decide is good in my book,” he said, and Lup nodded emphatically in agreement.

“Gods yes, take all these fucking decisions away from me,” she said, pushing all the brochures they’d accumulated for their potential wedding venues away from her. 

Barry ignored most of them, but made sure to grab the one with all the information on the cave and the number for calling the dude. “Okay, let Taako know we made a decision and I guess we’ll call him first thing in the morning,” he said. Lup pulled out her phone as she nodded, heading to Taako in her contacts.

“Sure thing babe, sounds like we got ourselves an actual fucking plan here,” she said. Barry found himself smiling as he watched her call her brother. He’d left them locked in their apartment again so that they would actually made a decision.

Telling him they chose the cave didn’t go as badly as it could’ve. He was definitely sated by the promise of having a direct hand in choosing where the reception would be. Honestly, it wasn’t hard to tell that he was happy and excited about this, probably as much as they were. Sure, he tried to hide it under grumbling, but Barry had known both of the twins long enough to be able to see through that.

The next morning he called the number of the cave owner, cave operator? Cave Attendant. He called the number that the cave attendant had left on the brochure. The dude still seemed pretty surprised that someone actually wanted to have their wedding in the cave, but he answered all of Barry’s questions and was more than willing to rent it out for them for the whole day.

After talking with the cave attendant for about an hour it seemed to be mostly set up. He’d asked when they were looking to rent and there had been a very quick wordless conversation of shrugs between him and Lup before Barry. They probably should have thought about a date before calling him. In the end he told the guy two months. As soon as he said it he tried not to panic because that seemed pretty fucking soon. The guy had given him a list of weekends though and the next thing he knew he was agreeing to a date and saying he’d have the payment in the mail for him by the end of the week.

“I… guess that’s settled then?” he said once he hung up, a dawning horror coming over him that they had two months to get all of this done. Two months to have their wedding planned and set up.

“It sure fucking is. We’re on fire here,” Lup said, and it didn’t seem like she was panicking as much as he was, at least not yet.

“Do you actually think we can get everything done in time? Maybe I should’ve given longer. Do you think he’ll give us longer if I call him back now?” he asked, but Lup was already shaking her head.

“No, nope we’re not backing out of this. Having a deadline is a good idea, that’ll make us stop waffling over every little decision, you know?” she said, and Barry supposed she did have a point. This would certainly kick them into gear. Besides, there probably wasn’t that much they needed to do when they got down to it. Like, decorations, invites, food, a photographer and music. That wasn’t a lot. They had food taken care of, and getting decorations and stuff would be fun. This was going to be fun.

“Yeah, yeah you’re right Lup, we’ll be fine. It’s not like we’re having anything fancy after all,” he said, and Lup nodded in agreement.

“Exactly. Babe, this is gonna be great.”

God, two months was a mistake. Two months was such a mistake what in the world were they thinking?

Taako hadn’t been ecstatic when they told him the date. July 26th. There were good things about the date. They would all be out of school by then, so having to plan around that wasn’t an issue. It’d be warm and the coolness of the inside of the cave would be nice.

The problems? It was soon. Sooner than either him or Lup had realized, plus there were finals between then and now.

They didn’t want to reschedule though. He and Lup were pretty sure still that they could do it. They needed to get the essentials down. They didn’t need anymore than the essentials. The things that would make it special wasn’t going over the top or anything like that, but being together and having their whole family with them.

Like, they were still going to go a little over the top in some ways. That went without saying, but they didn’t need all the extraneous bullshit. They were just going all in with the things they  _ did _ need, that was all.

And first thing on the needed items, now that they had a date and a location and a vague theme and color plan, were invitations.

Somehow, it was just as confusing to try and figure out as it was when they had none of those things.

“Does this look good? I don’t- I’m not a graphic designer babe. People take classes and learn for  _ years _ on how to figure out if things look good, I don’t know if things look good!” Lup said, staring at the choices of fonts and designs they had laid out in front of them. They all seemed nice to him. He couldn’t tell much of a difference between most of them.

“Maybe we should ask Lucretia for help? She’s like… art,” Barry suggested, waving a hand around trying to convey what he meant.

“Yeah, but she’s always so busy I’d hate to put more on her plate,” Lup said, and she had a point there. “I guess we could get some sort of pre-made set? But that feels so impersonal and bland,” she said, and Barry nodded in agreement.

“I mean, not every part of this needs to be tailor made for us I guess, but I get what you mean,” he said, sighing and flipping through a few of the templates

“Maybe we’re taking this too seriously. I think we’re taking it too seriously,” Lup said, and Barry nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, we need to just pick something,” he said, and then he stopped shuffling through the examples as an idea came to him. “Hey Lup?” he asked, and she still at a frown of concentration on her face as she looked through the type faces.

“What’s up babe?” she asked, and Barry was trying to figure out a way to word this.

“What if we didn’t have invitations,” he said, and Lup looked over at him.

“I guess we could have like, a fantasy facebook check in or whatever, that would be easier,” she said, but Barry was shaking his head. This was a ridiculous, dumb idea, so he was pretty sure Lup was going to love it.

“No, I mean like, okay not that we don’t have invitations, but just that we don’t have invitations like  _ these,” _ he said, pointing to the book of templates. Lup raised an eyebrow in question, clearly not getting it yet.

“You’re gonna have to explain a bit further, but I’m on board so far,” she said.

“Wanna go down to like, the grocery store and pick up a bunch of cards and write on them?” he asked. Lup stared at him for a moment, her face carefully blank.

“I can’t believe I actually get to  _ marry _ you,” she said finally, her voice just the slightest bit choked up. Barry couldn’t help but laugh at that, closing the book of templates with a feeling of finality.

“I take it you’re down then?” he asked, and Lup nodded, scrambling up from her seat.

“So fucking down babe, holy shit that’s the beset idea I’ve ever heard,” she said, and Barry kept laughing at the absolute glee in her voice.

It didn’t take them long to get down to the nearest Ralphs and into the card isle. There actually were a few options for wedding invitations there, but they stayed far away from those. Instead they picked up as many inappropriately themed cards as possible. 

There were a lot of birthday cards for ages 6 and under, making sure to grab the ones that played music whenever they could find them. They pretty much drained the ‘sorry for your loss’ section, which Barry insisted fit the theme of their wedding. Lup wasn’t arguing with him, instead laughing as she showed him a graduation card proclaiming ‘Seems You Weren’t Too Cool For School.’

The cashier seemed a little confused by their purchase, but didn’t say anything so neither of them felt any need to explain. Once they were home Lup found them some sharpies and they started doctoring up the cards. Crossing out words and replacing them so things like ‘Yahoo, you’re turning two!’ now read ‘Yahoo, you’re turning Marriage!’ and ‘Sorry for your loss.’ became ‘Wedding for your loss.’

It probably took a bit more time, since they had to write out the location and time on each card by hand. By the time they were done though it seemed well worth it.

When Taako came home that night Lup proudly showed off their handiwork. There was a split second where it looked like he was going to try and pretend to be annoyed with the whole thing. Then he started cracking up at a father’s day card that had the ‘father’s’ crossed out and replaced with ‘married.’

The next morning Barry dropped the invites off at the post office on his way to class, and that was it. They couldn’t change the date now without having to contact everyone they invited and tell them, so they were pretty much locked in. This was happening. They had a little less than two months to figure out how to have their whole wedding, and there was no going back now.

Barry tried not to be too terrified. It would be fine after all. They managed the invites with no problem once they figured out what they wanted to do, the rest of it would be a piece of cake as well.

“Okay but Barold, cake isn’t that simple. Cake is fucking hard to get perfect, which by the way do you two really want that red velvet cake with the black icing? Because I can still do it, I just want to be sure that wasn’t a goof,” Taako said. It’d been a week since they’d gotten the invitations out and they’d heard back from most people almost immediately. It wasn’t surprising. They’d announced their engagement as soon as they’d gotten back from the Candlenights trip, and everyone had been excited for the actual wedding ever since.

“I need to double check with Lup I guess, but as far as I’m concerned yeah, that works,” Barry told them. Other than getting the invites out though and seeing most of who was available, they hadn’t done much else.

The only other thing they’d decided was where to have the reception, with of course Taako making the final executive decision. Lup and Barry still both got a say, and were more than happy to have something taken out of their hands on this. Still, the actual location surprised them both a bit.

Instead of choosing someplace extravagant or anything like that, Taako had settled on Merle’s beach house. It was a pretty large place, with a dock right out over the water. Whenever they had gatherings with everyone it was usually the location they went with. Taako had insisted that if he was going to be cooking everything for the reception it needed to be perfect, and having a kitchen he was familiar with would speed the whole process up.

Lup and Barry were instantly pleased with the choice. When they asked Merle, which was more as a formality than anything, he said it meant they wouldn’t have to move for the after-after party.

Which was a valid point.

Still, other than that though they hadn’t made any real big decisions. Barry wasn’t even sure what kind of big decisions there were. He knew Lup had a list she was going off of for the most part, but it was still hard to nail down a next move.

“I’m just not sure what I should be doing Taako. Like, I guess we need to plan decorations? Clothes? I probably need to get a suit. Should I get a suit? I should probably wear a suit but what if I wore something else,” Barry rambled. Lup had locked herself away in her room to finish a paper for a class and warned no one to bother her for the next three hours. So Barry was out here, trying to workshop their next move with Taako.

“You guys do need to figure out the set up of the cave, decorations and all that shit. Also like, lighting, and seating. I’m not sitting on the floor of a cave,” Taako said, not looking up front the dinner he was cooking.

“You’re going to be standing up there with us Taako, you don’t have to worry about sitting,” Barry told him, but he had a good point. They’d have to figure out those sorts of things. Maybe they could talk to Magnus about it. Barry was down for having a bunch of plastic fold out chairs honestly, but Magnus might actually take that as a personal offense.

“Ugh, why is your wedding so much work for me. Lup better throw the bouquet at me to make up for it,” he grumbled.

“I thought you and Kravitz weren’t planning on getting married anytime soon,” Barry teased.

“It’s not about getting married Barold, it’s about winning,” Taako insisted. He decided not to argue with him on that, because honestly a part of it was probably true. Sure, there was definitely a part of Taako that was trying to mask how happy he was with Kravitz, but they called him out on that often enough. He could let this one slide.

“Listen, if you want to get something done, fucking help me out with the menu. I know the cake, and I’ve got some stuff planned, you know, as like a surprise or whatever. But some direction for hors d’oeuvre and sides and shit would be appreciated,” Taako said, and that was a fair point. They both trusted Taako’s cooking, and Lup was going to help as much as she could too, but suggestions wouldn’t hurt.

“Uh, can we do chicken wings?” he asked. Taako stopped stirring the pasta on the stove before letting out a very long, dramatic sigh.

“Yeah, yeah fine. Fuck you’re lucky I love the two of you so goddamn much,” he said, and Barry laughed at that.  

“I know we are, thanks Taako,” he said, letting himself sound as sincere as he felt. It got a groan of fake annoyance out of Taako, who went back to his cooking.

Barry was still feeling pretty nervous about this whole thing. He wasn’t sure how he got so lucky to have someone like Lup actually want to marry him or to be welcomed into this makeshift family so fully, but he was thankful for every second of it.

Barry honestly didn’t care what happened at his wedding, no matter what it was going to be perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeey y'all, so it's only been five... five months, down to the day. haha, sorry about that. to say i got distracted would be a bit of an understatement. I am planning on finishing this fic though! like, it's only got a couple more chapters left, so i'm definitely going to do that, because i love these ridiculous nerds so very much. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed~


	5. Chapter 5

Lup was starting to second guess the whole ‘if we give ourselves a due date we’ll be able to get everything done quicker’ idea. Procrastination wasn’t ever much of a problem that her or Barry had, surprisingly enough. It wasn’t that they were putting off the things they needed to do.

It was just that they had no fucking idea what those things were.

They were getting stuff done, no one could argue with that. They had a place picked out, and they got the invitations sent, and both of those things were perfect. They’d sat down with Taako and figured out all the food, and he was refusing to let them help any further than that. Normally Lup would make him fill her in on all the details of what he was doing with something like this, but she couldn’t this time. She didn’t have the  _ time. _

She didn’t understand why there were so many things you had to decide for a wedding. She wondered if she could decide to decide a lot less shit.

They were working through it though, in between schoolwork and the rest of their lives. Johann had agreed to do music for them already, they even hired a photographer. In  _ advance. _ They were being productive goddamn adults here.

“We should probably figure out what everyone’s doing in the wedding before it gets too close, right? Don’t some of them have to make like, speeches?” Barry asked her about two week after they’d gotten all the invites out. They’d heard back from pretty much everyone now, and there was some relief hearing how many people were going to be there. Relief as well as terror. Barry had a point, they needed to settle that.

“Damn, yeah. Do we actually trust any of our friends to make speeches for us?” she asked, and Barry frowned some at that.

“Well, no, but I’m more afraid about what some of them would do if we  _ didn’t _ let them than whatever they’ll do for the actual speech,” he said.

“Good point,” Lup agreed. “Okay, so what are the actual positions we gotta fill?” she asked, settling down on Barry’s couch. Taako had kicked them out of the apartment so he could get more food planning done. She had a feeling he was working on something specific he didn't want either of them to know about, but she wouldn't call him on it for now.

“I mean, I guess we can kinda adjust it however we want, but I know there’s the maid of honor, the best man, some number of bridesmaids and um… whatever the guy versions are called, I can’t remember,” Barry said.

“I think it’s just groomsmen,” Lup said.

“Yeah, that. Those, and um, ring bearer and flower girl? And someone to walk you down the isle?” he said.

“Okay, but how many bridesmaids and shit are we supposed to have?” Lup asked. Barry was quiet for a moment, clearly thinking. Then he pulled out his phone and Lup laughed as she saw him starting to search the question.

“Um, as many as a dozen, but typically anywhere from three to five,” he said.

“Okay, that shouldn’t be too hard. I’m pretty sure Taako’s already demanded maid of honor, so that’s one down,” Lup said. Her and Taako had talked quite a bit about what he would do, and they figured maid of honor was the most appropriate role, if they had to give an official title. Lup was pretty sure he was still gonna walk her down the isle too, so who really gave a shit about what the exact title was.

“Sounds good,” Barry said, and Lup could tell he was trying to think over all the other positions. “I’m still not sure who should like, be the best man. I guess there’s not like, a bad choice, it just feels weird,” he said, and Lup nodded in understanding.

“Babe, none of our friends are going to get upset that they weren’t picked,” she reassured him. “I mean, Taako would, but we’ve got that covered,” she added.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, slumping back into the couch cushions some more as he seemed to think it over. “I guess in that case, it has to be Magnus, right? To see if he could actually get through the speech without crying?” Barry asked. Lup let out a bark of laughter and nodded at that.

“Hell yeah, text him now and ask if he’s cool with that,” she said. She saw him send a text, and it was only a few seconds later that he got one back.

“He said absolutely, and also sent like, six happy crying emojis, so I think that ship’s already sailed,” he said. Lup snickered, entirely unsurprised by that.

"How old are ring bearers supposed to be?" she asked once that was done, and Barry started googling again.

"Um, three to eight. It also says we can use animals," he answered. Lup hummed, thinking that over.

"Angus is probably too old then," she said. "Do we know any cool animals? I mean, Magnus has dogs so I guess we could do that," she said. Barry nodded, debating the idea over in his head as well.

"I guess so. I'm sure Magnus would be down for that, I could ask him," he said. Lup was about to give him the go ahead before an idea came to her and she sat up.

"What about Taako's daughter?" she asked, and there was a quick look of confusion on Barry's face before he realized what she meant.

"You mean Queen?" he asked, and Lup nodded enthusiastically.

"Babe. Babe it's a giant fucking raven. Can you imagine?" she asked, and he laughed some at that.

"Okay yeah that'd be pretty cool. I guess we could ask Kravitz next time we see him," he said, and Lup figured that was fair.

With those positions out of the way it wasn’t too hard to figure out the rest of the wedding party. It was best to keep it small, since they didn’t  _ really _ know what they were doing. They should keep the official Wedding Shit as minimal as possible.

So they figured two and two for each of them was good. Lup figured Lucretia and Ren would be the best options. They quickly decided on Davenport as one of the groomsmen, but Barry seemed to be having trouble picking the other.

“It’s not that I can’t think of anybody, I just don’t want to make anyone feel left out I guess,” he said after a moment. Lup couldn’t help the sappy smile on her face at that.

“Babe, you’re a fucking sweetheart, but no one’s gonna be upset that they weren’t picked, I already told you that,” she said. Barry sighed and nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, still seeming very undecided about who to go with. Lup thought for a moment before another idea came to her, a grin spreading across her face.

“What about Kravitz?” she asked. There was a small frown of confusion on Barry’s face at that, which didn’t surprise her.

“Um, what about him?” he asked back.

“He’d make a pretty decent groomsman, and we already want his bird to be the ring bearer. I’m just saying,” she said, and Barry nodded hesitantly.

“Yeah, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like Kravitz. He’s a nice guy and I like hanging out with him, but we haven’t like, known him that long. Him and Taako have only been dating since Candlenights,” he said.

“Mhmm, fair points, but consider how much it would fluster Taako,” Lup said. Barry laughed a little at that, although he still didn’t seem fully on board with this plan.

“It would be a sight to behold, but like I said, they’ve only been dating a couple months now. It’d be kinda awkward like, looking back on pictures later if they broke up,” he said. It was a good point, and not one she’d thought about.

“I guess so,” she said as she thought it over. “And uh, stop me if I’m getting too sappy here, but I kinda don’t see that happening? I know it really hasn’t been that long but I’ve never seen Taako like… you know? I just feel like those two are gonna work out,” she shrugged. It was a little weird to think about, but she knew Taako better than he knew himself. She could tell that this was a lot more serious than he tried to let on.

“Yeah, I think you’re right about that,” Barry agreed, a soft smile on his face. It was quiet between the two of them for a moment before Lup was grinning again.

“So, is that a yes ooor?” she asked, and Barry laughed some at that.

“You can ask him, I’m not having that conversation,” he said, and Lup punched the air in triumph before pulling out her phone. “Oh god you’re actually going to do it now?” Barry asked.

“Of course. If he says no we gotta figure out someone else after all, and we can see if he'll let us borrow Queen too,” she said, like it was obvious. Barry didn’t argue with her, a fond smile on his face even as he rolled his eyes.

'Hey you busy right now?' She sent to him. She’d gotten his number almost immediately after him and Taako started dating, so that she could get him to yell at Taako for her if he was ignoring her.

'Not at the moment, do you need something?' His reply came after a moment.

'Nah, barry and I were just working out the wedding party and were wondering if you’d be down with being a groomsman.' There wasn’t any reply for a few minutes, which Lup could have predicted.

'Really?' Was all he eventually responded with.

'Yeah! Since you were there for the engagement and taako’s gonna be my maid of honor we thought it fit.' she sent, and then added on. 'Also, we were wondering if Queen could be a ring bearer? She'll just need to fly down the isle, and if you're at the end with us that would make it easier.' 

There was a shorter pause before his answer this time, although it still took a minute. She wondered if he was talking to Taako about this. Since she wasn’t getting a million messages from her brother at the moment, she figured probably not.

'I suppose I would be honored to, thank you. And Queen as well, that sounds great.'

Lup grinned wildly when she saw that message and held up her phone for Barry to read. “He agreed, this is happening,” she said, extremely pleased with herself.

“You can be the one to explain to Taako,” was all Barry said, and she waved it off. A few hours later she did get a very indignant call from her dear brother asking why the fuck they asked Kravitz and his dear daughter to be a part of the wedding party without a little heads up. She told him she didn’t see why it would be an issue, since he was already invited to the wedding and all.

Taako was still annoyed with her for the next couple days, but she could tell most of it was him being stubborn.

She was pretty lucky that was the case, because as it was now she needed his help. Luckily his desire to give his unsolicited opinion on things overruled his need to be petty.

“Spending thousands of dollars on a dress I’m only going to wear once is stupid, right? It’s stupid, I shouldn’t do that,” Lup said as they drove. It was just her and Taako, and the plan for the day was to find what she would wear to the wedding.

“Unless…” Taako started.

“Unless?” she echoed back, unable to keep her lips from curling up into a slight smile.

“Unless it’s like, a really baller dress,” he said. Lup felt her shoulder slump in defeat some at that.

“I mean, yeah, but I still shouldn’t,” she said, and Taako nodded quickly in agreement.

“Oh definitely, definitely not,” he said, and it was quite in the car for a moment. “But you  _ could,” _ he added.

“I could,” Lup agreed. Finally they pulled into the first store they had on the list. It wasn’t strictly a bridal gown shop, but Lup didn’t need it to be a for real wedding dress. She definitely didn’t need for it to be white, although she guessed that would stand out in the dark cave. She wasn’t even 100% committed to a dress, even if she was still leaning that way. If she saw something else that was perfect though she wouldn’t pass it up.

“I wonder if they have big carts,” Taako said as they walked in, and Lup rolled her eyes.

“We can deal with a regular sized cart. That way I can try stuff on in shifts,” she said.

“Fair point,” he agreed. With that they started into the store, heading towards the dress section first. They started pouring over everything there, trying to move quick while still taking it all in. They had a lot of stores to get to today and Lup had no idea how long this would actually take. There was a lot of stuff Lup found that she would wear normally, and stuff she would wear to fancy occasions. Or fancy shit she would wear to not fancy occasions, even if that was more Taako’s thing than hers.

So far though nothing quite seemed right to wear to her wedding.

When they left that first store, her and Taako has each bought one outfit (Lup was surprised they’d managed to limit it to one, they were going high on the restraint today) but definitely not the wedding dress yet.

The next store they went to ended up with a similar effect. There were a few things that Lup felt were close contenders, a few red and black ball gowns that were dramatic as fuck.  They weren’t quite  _ it _ though.

Third and fourth store didn’t yield results either. Taako had like six things to pick from to wear to the wedding through, so that was something at least.

“I just want it to be-” she started as they walked out of the fourth store, but Taako cut her off.

“Perfect, hey I’m right there with ya. We’ll keep searching until we find something,” he said. Lup frowned as they threw their bags of not-quite-perfect clothes into the backseat.

“Maybe we could find something close and like, edit it?” she said, and Taako’s face lit up at that.

“Hell yeah, let’s hit a few more stores and then we’ll head over to a fabric place,” he said. Lup felt some of the excitement return to her at this new plan. The next store didn’t find them a winner, and Lup’s legs were starting to get sore as fuck.

Finally at the sixth store of the day though, Lup found something she felt like she could work with. In all honest it was pretty damn simple.

It was just a short, bright red sleeveless dress. It fit her like a fucking glove though, and it wasn’t perfect but it was the base of something that could be.

“I want a cape,” she said as she walked out of the dressing room to show Taako the dress.

“God, you two aren’t actually serious about the cape thing are you?” he asked, before giving her a quick once over. “Also, that looks fucking amazing, if you don’t get it I will,” he added.

“No, it’s mine,” she said, ignoring his pouting at that. “I think this might be it though. But I want a cape, and maybe, I don’t know, jewels?” she added, looking at herself in the mirror again. She could see Taako squinting at her through the reflection, trying to picture what she was thinking of.

“It’s not gonna be a fucking curtain,” he said finally, and Lup nodded.

“I already told Barry he’s not wearing the one from Candlenights, you can chill,” she said. With that she went back to the changing room, getting back into her clothes so they could leave. Thankfully now that they had that the only stop left was the fabric store.

It still took a while there, picking out exactly what fabric she wanted for the cape and making sure it matched the dress. They also got like, a fuckton of gems and sequins and shit. Just so many, it was gonna be a bitch and a half to get them all on.

Lup was starting to see it come together in her head though, and she was getting real fucking excited.

Once they got home Lup carried all her bags into her room. “I’m gonna get shit set up in here. Barry’s not gonna be allowed in until it’s done,” she said.

“I’ll keep your boy back if he tries anything,” Taako assured her. She nodded before dumping the bags on her bed.

“Hey Taako, do we have a dress form or a mannequin or something?” she called out to him.

“I think Mag’s got something, I’ll text him,” he yelled back. An hour later Magnus was over with an inexplicable wooden mannequin he owned for some fucking reason. It did the job as a dress form well enough with a bit of padding though, so Lup wasn’t gonna complain or ask questions.

It was too late at that point to start working on the dress, plus she was dead tired from the excessive amount of shopping they’d done today. Even for them, that had been a lot. The next morning however she began working on the dress, starting with the cape first. This was definitely going to be more than a one day project and she was trying not to get overwhelmed thinking about how much stuff they still had left to get done before the wedding.

While that was on her mind though, she paused in her work and sent Barry a quick text. ‘Hey babe, figured out my dress but it’s gonna end up being a project. Do you think you could handle getting all the chairs and lights and stuff for the cave yourself?’ A few moments later Barry’s response came.

‘Sure thing. I might bring Magnus or something, he probably knows about lights and chairs and stuff.’

‘Thanks babe.’

Okay, they were getting this done. This was going to go great, and they still have a couple more weeks to get the last few things in order.

Lup was a decent way into the cape when a thought came to her, and she quickly grabbed her phone to send Barry another text.

‘Do you have something to wear to the wedding?’ There was a pause before she got a reply back from him. At first she couldn’t be sure if he hadn’t looked at his phone, but the answer gave her the feeling that wasn’t the case.

‘I’ll go out with Taako this weekend.’ It said simply, and Lup couldn’t help but laugh some at that. God, they were so fucking bad at this.

‘Yeah, please do that.’ She sent before getting back to work.

Still, it was getting done, and she supposed that was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote most of this chapter while down with the flu (which i still have but it's not anywhere near as bad now) so hopefully it's not too noticeable. Also, this fic is going to have one more chapter than I originally planned, but hey that's still a lot closer than I usually am at guessing the lengths of these things. And hey, I didn't wait five months to update this time! On all kinds of rolls here. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed~


	6. Chapter 6

It was getting close. Frighteningly close actually, and Barry wasn’t sure if he could do this.

No, no that was stupid, of course he could do this. He wanted to do this more than anything. He was happy and in love and he was going to marry the most amazing person he’d ever met in his life.

But god, what if he messed up?

Well, Lup would probably find it amusing, she had never been bothered by him messing up before after all. Even if he made a complete fool of himself she’d laugh and they’d both be nervous but happy and their friends would make fun of them afterwards but not in a mean way. It was going to be fine.

But what if it  _ wasn’t? _

“Alright Barold, do I need to get you on some fucking deep breathing exercises or some shit?” Taako said, and Barry quickly shook his head.

“No, no I’m okay, everything’s okay,” Barry insisted. It was only a week until the wedding. He didn’t know how it had gotten so close but it had and now there wasn’t much left to do. At the same time though there was still so much left to do. They actually had to set everything up, and double check that everything was still good to go.

It was though, or at least the important things were, Barry kept trying to tell himself that. Food was being taken care of by Taako, cave had been booked for a while. They had chairs and lighting for the cave. Decorations too. Barry had just gotten off the phone with the photographer, he was still set to go with no issues.

It was going to be fine.

“God, what if she doesn’t want to marry me?” Barry asked, Taako giving him a flat look.

“Okay, you need to take a minute cause that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard you say in a long while my dude. Like, instant top five dumbest shit, a true contender for the number one spot,” Taako said. Lup was out right now, she was taking her final exam and then they’d all be out of classes and could focus solely on the wedding. They really shouldn’t have pushed the two things so close together, the last week had been uh, unpleasantly stressful to say the least.

“I know, I know, it’s just- god, what if we rushed into this too fast? We really  _ haven’t  _ been dating that long, and I love Lup, like, I can’t even put it into words? And I have for so long but what if it’s not- it might not have been the same for her,” he said, starting to pace now. He could see Taako roll his eyes as he sat on the couch, flipping through the dinner orders for the wedding. He was ordering all the supplies for the dinner’s now so that they’d be fresh on the day of.

“Yeah okay, you’re right about that. You fell for Lup like, what? Middle of freshman year in highschool? Lup only started crushing on you sophomore year, during that robotics class you two nerds had together, so you got a good couple of months on her,” Taako said casually.

“That’s- okay, maybe I’m being a little dumb about this,” Barry said, ignoring the loud sound of agreement from Taako there. “I just, is this cold feet? Cold feet worrying the other person is gonna get cold feet?” he asked, and Taako shrugged.

“Sounds more like that second thing,” he said. Barry sighed, and jumped slightly when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Pulling it out he saw a text from Lup, and he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face seeing her excited announcement of finishing her exam.

“Barold, look at me right now,” Taako said, and when Barry looked up from his phone Taako was holding up a mirror.

“Uh, what’s that for?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. It was a little handheld thing, Barry was pretty sure it’d been sitting on the coffee table.

“So you can see the dumb look on your face when Lup’s involved,” he said.

“How do you know it’s a text from Lup,” Barry countered. Sure, it was one, but that didn’t mean Taako had to know that.

“Because of the dumb lovestruck look on your face, get it together my man,” Taako said. Barry couldn’t help but laugh a little at that because well, he was right. It was very much Lup and he did have a dumb look on his face. “Look, you two are gonna be great. Even if this day doesn’t go perfect or whatever it’ll be fine. Like, you think I’d sit back and watch Lup marry some dude without saying shit if I didn’t think she was gonna be fucking ecstatic? I don't control her but I sure as hell can kick up a fuss if she's making a bad decision,” he said, and that actually managed to get Barry to relax somewhat.

“No, that’s- you’re right Taako,” he said, and Taako nodded sharply, turning back towards his cards.

“Of course I’m right,” he said with confidence.

“It’s- shit. Shit Taako, I’m getting married,” Barry said, and that got a bark of laughter out of him.

“You sure fucking are my dude, you just realize that?” he asked, and Barry couldn’t help but laugh some too. It was stupid, but all of a sudden he felt giddy about the whole thing. He’d been in such a panic before, but Taako was right. They wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t want to. Lup sure as fuck wouldn’t have gone through all of this if she didn’t want to actually  _ marry him. _

“Yeah but, I’m getting  _ married!”  _ he said, and a dumb idea was starting to come to him. “I uh, I’m gonna go meet up with Lup, she just got out of class, don’t wait up,” he said. He could see Taako roll his eyes, but he was definitely smiling as he waved him off.

“I’m not going anywhere my dude, got too much goddamn work to do for  _ your wedding,” _ he said, and Barry chuckled some at that. It was nearing sunset, but it was warm enough now that he didn’t need to grab a jacket or anything. Running back to his room, he grabbed up some papers he was pretty sure they were gonna need, if Lup even wanted to go through with his plan that is. Still, best to have them just in case she did.

Passing by a mirror, he gave himself a quick once over. He was just wearing a gray button up shirt and jeans, but it was fine. It was perfect.

“Cool, back in a bit,” he said, heading out. He already knew the way Lup would be walking home from class, but he quickly pulled out his phone and texted her.

‘Hey, I got a really dumb idea and I’m heading out to meet you from class’ he sent. He got a response back almost instantly.

‘Color me intrigued babe, what kinda idea?’

‘I’ll explain in a minute’ he sent back. He was kind of jogging to get to Lup faster, and it wasn’t too much longer before he could see her down the road. He picked up his pace at that, and he was kind of panting once they were together but he still had a huge grin across his face.

“Someone’s excited,” Lup said, laughing slightly at the sight of him.

“Yeah I- are you busy?” he asked, which got a snort out of her.

“I mean, not  _ really. _ Got a wedding to plan for next week, did I ever mention that to you?” she joked.

“Once or twice. It’s actually kinda about that though,” he said, and he could see the look of interest on her face at that.

“Oh yeah? What ya got cooking in that brain of yours? Cause it’s a little late to change anything major but whatever it is I’m sure we can swing it if it’s got you this stoked,” she said. Barry took a deep breath, trying to sound somewhat calm and reasonable as he spoke.

“I wanna get married,” he said. Lup stared at him for a moment, a look of confusion on her face, before bursting out laughing. She still looked confused, and it took a minute for her to actually speak.

“That’s- fucking spectacular babe, I wanna get married too. I think the wedding is gonna cover that one tho, no need to worry,” she said, and Barry nodded.

“I know, but like, I wanna get married now,” he said, and now Lup was looking a little uncertain.

“That’s great babe, but it’s- we’ve already got everything planned, and I don’t wanna like, not do that,” she said. Barry nodded feverishly, grabbing her hands as he did.

“I still want to do the wedding, of course. More than anything, I want to celebrate this with our family, but I also- I want to be married to you now. And I just- I thought it might be nice, if it was just the two of us,” he said. There was another long moment where Lup was staring at him, and Barry could see the way she was trying to tell if he was serious about this.

Then a large smile broke out across her face, and she pulled him down into a kiss. Barry followed without a moment of hesitation, and when they finally pulled away he was grinning just as brightly as she was.

“God, this is so fucking stupid babe. You know that right? We’re getting married  _ next week,” _ she said, and he nodded quickly.

“Completely pointless and needlessly dramatic,” he agreed. “So, do you want to, or…?” he asked, and Lup laughed.

“Yeah.  _ Fuck _ yeah,” she said, and Barry was laughing too now. He had to let go of one of her hands so that they could actually walk, but he kept hold of one. “You know the way to the courthouse?” Lup asked, and Barry quickly pulled out his phone to google it.

“Okay, not far, we should be able to walk. Shit, I forgot to grab the rings,” he said, and Lup shrugged, not seeming bothered by that any.

“We don’t need em, they can be all fresh for the wedding,” she said, and okay, that worked. They didn’t need to do any of the proper wedding junk, all of that was for Saturday. Which would be amazing, Barry was still so fucking excited for the actual wedding. And nervous, of course he was still nervous.

A lot of those nerves were gone now, at least for the moment replaced with a dumb giddiness. It didn’t take too long for them to get to the courthouse, and they certainly didn’t look like they were there to get married. Barry was in casual clothes and he didn’t even think to brush his hair before he left, and Lup had just finished taking a fucking astrophysics final and still had her backpack.

None of that deterred them at all as they went up to the front desk. The place looked like it was gonna close in about an hour too.

“Hey, we wanna get married. Can we do that now? Shit, babe did you-” Lup started to ask, but Barry was already pulling out the marriage certificate. They’d gotten all the paperwork lined up this past weekend, although they hadn’t been planning to do anything with it until the actual date of the wedding.

“Got em,” he said, putting them down on the desk. The receptionist quickly looked over the papers, nodding after a moment.

“Oh, well yes, we can take care of that here. Do you have a witness, or…?” the woman asked, and Barry saw Lup jolt somewhat.

“Wait, yeah shit. Babe I know you wanted this to just be us, but…” Lup trailed off, and Barry quickly nodded.

“No, give him a call, honestly it’d feel wrong without him here,” he said. Lup actually seemed relieved by that, quickly pulling out her phone and calling Taako.

“Ko, get your butt down to the courthouse right now,” she said as soon as he answered. Barry couldn’t hear Taako’s response to that, but he imagined it wasn’t the most thrilled. “Yep, that’s it, totally need you to pay my bail. Just get down here dummy they’re closing in an hour,” she said. Barry snickered some at that, and he guessed Taako relented because the next thing Lup was saying was ‘Okay, see ya soon,’ before hanging up.

It took Taako about fifteen minutes to actually show up at the courthouse, and in that time they’d managed to fill out the last bits of paperwork needed to go through with this and pay the fee. There weren’t many other people in the there so late, and the people who were there seemed pretty intent on not bothering them.

“Alright, what the fuck have you two idiots gotta up to?” Taako asked as he walked into the room. Before Barry could attempt to answer Lup grabbed a hold of him, pulling him into a deep but relatively quick kiss. When she pulled back she had their signed marriage license in her hand and was waving it up above them.

“Guess who just got hitched bro-bro!” she announced.

Taako stood there staring at them for a long moment, his mouth hanging open in shock. It was probably bad, but Barry couldn’t help but snicker some. The shock slowly turned into a look of outrage as he stomped across the courthouse and started smacking the both of them.

“You two! Fucking idiots! Have a wedding! This Saturday!” he shouted, each pause punctuate by a swat from a brochure he’d grabbed off the front desk.

“Relax you dummy! We’re still doing a wedding,” Lup assured him, snatching the brochure away.

“We want to celebrate with everyone and like, do all the dumb ceremony stuff, but like, we thought it would be nice to have the actual marriage thing be more private,” Barry explained. There really wasn’t a lot of thought put into it other than that, but after a moment Taako sighed. He still looked pretty put upon, but it was obvious that he was trying to appear more annoyed than he actually was.

“You two are fucking hopeless. Can’t believe my entire family is such absolute disasters,” he said, clearly trying to fight back a grin now.

“Can’t you?” Lup asked, and Taako snorted at that.

“Yeah okay, fair enough,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “So, is that it? Are you two fucking married now or what?” he asked, and Barry blinked, turning back towards the woman behind the counter. She was watching them with clear amusement, and Barry couldn’t blame her for that.

“Uh, are we done?” he asked.

“Oh, just hand me the marriage certificate and I’ll have it stamped and you’ll be all clear,” she said. Lup quickly handed the paper back over to her, and a moment later it was official.

They were fucking married.

Barry felt very justified in pulling Lup into another, slightly longer kiss. Lup returned the kiss immediately, almost melting up against him as she did. When they pulled away the few people still left in the courthouse started clapping, and Barry had almost completely forgotten that they were even there. Taako was making a face, but he couldn’t quite wipe the smile on his face.

“Alright, congratulations you two have a whole fucking wedding next week that I’ve been  _ slaving over,  _ but you’re married now! We got any plans for the rest of the night or what?” Taako asked. Barry shrugged, turning towards Lup.

“I just got out of a three hour exam so I’m fucking starving,” she said. Barry pulled out his phone, quickly searching for some food nearby.

“Oh, hey that taco truck you guys like is pretty close to here,” he said.

“Hell yes, I’m going to eat fucking fifty. The last thing I ate was a star crunch I found in my purse,” Lup said, and Barry laughed at that.

“I’m down but I have to say I can’t fucking believe we’re eating at a fucking food truck the night my sister and  _ brother in law _ got married,” Taako said, following them out of the courthouse. Barry could feel his face turning red at that, starting to laugh a little nervously.

“Yeah that’s- shit, that’s like, official now, isn’t it?” he said, and Taako nodded.

“Sure fucking is,” he said. It didn’t take long for the three of them to get to the food truck and buy way too many tacos. Except it wasn’t actually too many, since they managed to finish them all anyway.

It was weird, and Barry knew that on some level it wouldn’t actually change anything. It felt like things were different, but at the same time like they hadn’t changed at all. He wasn’t even sure if he could put words to it, other than the fact that he was real fucking happy.

They’d been so fucking worried about the wedding this whole time, but now Barry didn’t care. They were fucking married, and this Saturday they were just going to celebrate that and have  _ fun. _

He was so goddamn excited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been almost exactly five whole calendar months and i have no excuse. this is getting finished though, i swear! only one chapter left and i've already gotten it started! need to give the wedding day to these two delightful disasters after all. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed~


	7. Chapter 7

Getting married was the best decision they’d made during this whole fucking ordeal, right after getting engaged in the first place.

Now they just needed to do the actual wedding.

A lot of the nerves that had plagued Lup were gone, but that wasn’t making the rest of this much easier. Oh no, shit was still stressful. She was just glad that she could stop thinking about class, even if she had woken up once or twice this week in a panic thinking she’d overslept and missed an exam.

Luckily, she managed to realize the mistake before she actually left the house both times. It had come kinda close though, closer than she’d like to admit to anyone.

That wasn’t an issue last night though, thankfully. That might have been due to the fact that she’d barely managed to sleep at all, but it was something. You can’t oversleep and miss your wedding if you don’t sleep.

Not that she would have been able to oversleep even if she wanted to. Taako was in her room a good twenty minutes before her alarm was even set to go off, and she swore it was like this was  _ his _ wedding.

Well, her and Barry were already married, so this was mostly for the rest of their friends and family. In a way that kind of did make it a little bit Taako’s wedding. Not that she’d tell him that. Instead he got a pillow thrown in his face and the demand to let her rest for the precious few moments she had left. As soon as they started the day she knew they weren’t gonna be able to stop until it was over. Even though she was hyped as fuck for it she knew it would be a lot.

Only a few minutes after Taako came barging into her room her phone buzzed, several texts coming in from Barry. First was just a good morning, and then it was saying he was excited for the day, and then it was one asking if she’d finished her dress in time. Then another saying that it was already if she didn’t finish it because she’d look great in anything. Then as soon as she finished reading that one when another came in asking that she please make sure to wear something though because the cave was a little on the public side and he didn’t want her to get arrested on their wedding day.

Lup snorted, a stupid sleepy smile on her face as she quickly sent Barry a text back. She gave him a quick good morning and promised to wear the dress, but only because she’d put so much damn work into the thing.

“Okay, now what you’re up get dressed. It’s your wedding but you still got time to help me transport shit to the reception area. I got a lot of food I need in place and ready to serve before the ceremony so I can actually be there,” he said. Lup groaned but nodded, slinking out of bed. Then she shot a look over to the red dress still hanging on the mannequin form Magnus had let them borrow. She managed to finish it completely two days ago and wasn’t letting herself touch it anymore in fear of ruining it.

“Do I uh, just get dressed or get  _ dressed?” _ she asked.

“Throw on a goddamn t-shirt and jeans, not the dress. You’re carrying gravy and we’re not setting up for that kind of disaster,” Taako told her. Lup rolled her eyes but nodded, shooing Taako out of her room at that. She got dressed like he said, simple breezy clothes that she could run around in. She carefully took the dress off the mannequin and laid it out on the bed though, along with all of the jewelry and hair pieces she’d had picked out for the day.

Then, she got a bag and put it all in, plus a few other things they'd need. There was a small hall by the cave they were having the reception in, and they’d probably get all dressed and set up there.

Taako was already out in the kitchen by the time she came back out, dressed up for a lot of cooking. He noticed the bag she was holding and nodded. “Keep that away from the food. I meant it when I said we’re not aiming for a gravy disaster here,” he said, and she couldn’t argue with that.

She knew Taako had done a lot of food prep, she’d helped with some even, despite his insistence on wanting to do it all himself. Even still, it felt a little ridiculous loading it all into the car to head down to the hall.

“Barry says he’s gonna meet us there. Have you spoken to your bird boy yet?” Lup asked as they got in. She’d put the bag with her dress down on the floor in the passenger’s side, which Taako was careful not to kick.

"He said he’s gonna make sure to be an hour or so early at least. He's still pretty panicked about you guys picking him as a groom’s man,” Taako said, and Lup just shrugged.

“Just figured it’d be easier on the bird is all,” she said, and Taako rolled his eyes at that.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he muttered.

“Hey, I get to see my boy all dressed up today, and now so do you,” Lup said, and she could see the internal debate on Taako’s face at that. He wanted to argue with her, but like, what exactly was there to argue with? Win win all around.

“Speaking of seeing, are you allowed to actually get a look at Barold before the big moment? I guess it doesn’t really count as bad luck since you’re already hitched,” he teased.

“Please don’t tell anyone else we did that. But it only counts if you see them like, all dressed up beforehand anyway. I don’t think it matters if he sees me in goddamn jean shorts,” she countered.

“Jean shorts are definitely always unlucky,” Taako muttered, and Lup snorted but didn’t argue.

It seemed way too soon when they got to the reception hall. Heading inside, they were some of the first people there, which wasn’t a surprise. Taako wanted to get there at ass in the morning to finish the food, and Lup was going to at least help somewhat with that.

It wasn’t long before the kitchen was rendered into intense organized chaos. Taako and Lup had cooked together long enough to be able to navigate around each other without a word. There were a few sous chefs they’d brought in for the event that were giving an honest attempt at keeping up. Lup figured they’d be more help once she had to leave to get ready and Taako was down a partner.

Slowly their friends who were helping with the set up started filing in. Lup knew most of them were going to the cave to help there since that was happening first, but she could see Lucretia out there helping direct people on what goes where. The decorations they had were either exceedingly dramatic or super utilitarian, but it worked.

A smile broke out onto Lup’s face when Barry came stumbling into the kitchen, looking a bit flustered.

“Oh good, you’re both here. Mags said he’s at the cave and they’re setting up,” he said, and Lup finished chopping the vegetables in front of her before heading over to him.

“Sounds good babe,” she said, pulling him into a kiss. They didn’t get to continue for very long before Taako was swatting them with a wooden spoon and they had to pull apart.

“Oh nope, none of that now. Save it for the ceremony,” he said. Lup rolled her eyes but she couldn’t actually get too annoyed. Barry just had an amused and sheepish look on his face.

“Fair enough,” he said with a shrug before turning back towards Lup. “I’m gonna go help get everything uh, set up, and junk. See you later?” he asked, and Lup grinned as she nodded.

“Go get yourself beautiful babe. See you in a bit,” she said, leaning in and giving him another quick kiss just because she could. With that Barry grinned widely at her before leaving, giving Taako a quick wave as he did. 

“You know, you should probably get going and start getting yourself all fixed up,” Taako said. Lup had moved back to continue to help with the cooking, and it still seemed like there was so much left to do.

“I can keep cooking for a bit longer,” she offered, but Taako was shaking his head now.

“Nope, go get ready for your big day, I got this shit,” he insisted, coming over and taking the knife out of her hand for good measure. A part of her wanted to argue, but she really should start getting her shit in order.

“Yeah alright fine, you better not stay holed up in the kitchen until the last minute,” she relented. Heading back out to the car, she quickly grabbed the bag of clothes out and went up to one of the private room they’d rented for getting ready. She set the dress out, flicking it out some to get rid of any wrinkles, and then placed all her accessories down next to it again. She knew how to make herself look fucking fantastic and hot as hell, and Barry would be just as starry eyed if she came down the aisle in the t-shirt and shorts she was wearing, her hair a mess from running around the kitchen.

Despite all of that, and despite most of the nerves being gone at this point, she still wanted help. She wanted to look so good Barry wouldn’t be able to say his vows straight.

‘Luce, you busy?’ she texted, and from the slight pause before she got a response Lup figured she was pretty busy. Lucretia could type unnaturally fast on any device. They’d tested it.

‘Not at all’ came the response. Lup snorted at that, and god, they were gonna have to do something for everyone busting their asses for this. That was definitely something to focus on later though.

‘Help me get pretty?’ she sent, and then added on ‘more so than my baseline drop dead gorgeous that is.’

‘Of course, be right there,’ Lucretia sent back. While she was waiting for Lucretia she put on the dress, since she wouldn’t want to do it afterwards and mess up everything. It took a few minutes before Lucretia actually got there. Lup had spent most of the time smiling at herself in the mirror. Even if the rest of her was a mess, the short red dress with the long cape and sequins coming up like fire looked fucking amazing.

“Hell yeah, hair and makeup has arrived,” Lup said when Lucretia came into the room.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Lucretia said, sounding amused. Lup had brought a lot of makeup with her too, but she was pretty sure she’d managed to narrow it down to almost exactly what she was gonna be using.

“Hey, when the canvas you’re starting with is this good you don’t got anything to worry about babe,” Lup said.

It was probably good that she listened to Taako about going out to get ready when she did. She knew it would take a long time to get everything put together, but she still felt antsy and ready for it to be over long before it was. She wanted to go out there and help and be around everybody getting ready for the big day.

She guessed it was worth it when it was all done and she could see herself in full though. She looked fucking amazing.

“Shit, thanks Luce,” she said, turning her head this way and that to see the way the gems strung throughout her hair gleamed. 

“Happy to help,” Lucretia said, and it was obvious that she meant it too. Shit.  _ Shit. _ Okay, she wasn’t going to get emotional yet, especially when they spent for fucking ever getting her makeup in order.

“Okay, fuck, what time is it? We should uh, get down to the cave and help with last minute set up,” Lup said, pulling herself away from the mirror. Lucretia was looking at her with an amused expression on her face now. She’d probably seen the way her eyes had started to water for a second there.

“It’s almost noon, we have plenty of time. I’ve been getting updates from the others and they all said it’s coming along fine. You and Barry can focus on yourselves today,” Lucretia told her. That was honestly about what Lup expected. As much work as they’d put in setting everything up, they both figured their friends would insist on doing everything they could get their hands on the day of.

“Barry nervous?” she asked, and Lucretia laughed a little at the question.

“Of course,” she said, which yep, Lup expected that. “Magnus said he’s doing surprisingly good though. Mostly excited despite the nerves,” Lucretia continued, and Lup couldn’t help the soft smile that spread across her face at that.

Before she could say something disgustingly mushy about Barry and set herself up on a path that would definitely lead to tears happening the door cracked open.

“Oh shoot sorry, I didn’t know anyone was- oh Lup, I was actually looking for you. Well, you or Barry. Uh, you look amazing by the way,” Kravitz said, sounding more nervous and formal than he usually did. That was probably fair, considering the circumstances.

“Thanks, play your cards right and I’m sure you’ll get to see Taako all prettied up like this soon enough,” she said with a grin and a wink. She could see the way his eyes widened the slightest bit and his mouth opened to protest but no sound came out.

“That’s not- I mean, it’s- he wouldn’t- uh,” Kravitz managed to stutter out after a moment. Then he was distracted when the large bird Lup hadn’t been able to see due to the door ruffled on his shoulder.

“Right um, anyway. I just wanted to know how we were doing things with Queen. There uh, there wasn’t a dress rehearsal, or at least I didn’t hear about one?” Kravitz asked, and Lup had to resist slapping her forehead and risk screwing up her hair.

“We forgot to do a dress rehearsal!” she groaned. She couldn’t even blame Lucretia for chuckling at that, their misfortune was pretty hilarious from an outside source. “Okay, okay it’s fine, this is fine. We don’t really have a lot of stuff strictly planned anyway. Uh, come here actually I got a thing for Queen,” Lup said, heading back over to her bag and rummaging around until she found it.

When she turned back Kravitz was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room in a very nice suit. The large bird seemed pretty content on his shoulder and she gave her a quick pet when she walked back over.

“So, it’s just a little ball tied onto this ribbon, we figured we could like, tie it around her neck or something?” she explained. Kravitz nodded, giving the thing a quick look over. It was a bright red metal ball that would stand out very well against her feathers.

“Yeah, that should work. Um, are the rings actually in there?” he asked, and Lup shook her head.

“Figured we could put them in right beforehand so that the risk of losing them is the lowest,” she said, and Kravitz nodded. Taking the ribbon, he got Queen to hold still and carefully tied it around her neck. “That’s a good birdie. A good ring birder,” Lup said, smiling brightly.

“Okay then, I’m uh, I guess I’ll go find Taako and make sure he’s ready to start heading over soon,” Kravitz said.

“Sounds good,” Lup said. Once he was gone Lup sat down so that she could put on her shoes as well, a pair of knee high bright red heeled boots that laced all the way up. It gave just enough edge to the rest of her outfit, and she grinned.

“Okay, I’m uh, I’m ready to head over now,” she said, Lucretia nodding.

“Alright, let’s go get you married,” she said.

Even though Lup wasn’t nervous anymore, she still felt anxious on the short ride over to the cave. She had no idea if it would look how they’d been envisioning. If Barry had gotten a chance to come over and check it all out before her or not. She knew it didn’t matter but there was an air of this being such a big deal still that she couldn’t help but worry some.

But it was fine. Even if it was a dingy cave with a bunch of folding chairs and no lights, she’d fucking laugh and be delighted at making her family watch her and Barry say their vows and everything in the fucking dark.

There was a small tent set up outside of the cave. A few actually, and  Lucretia led her to one as soon as they got there, not letting her look into the cave any.

“Come ooon Luce, I wanna see,” she complained, but Lucretia shook her head.

“Sorry, no can do. Barry’s already inside and guests are starting to file in,” Lucretia said, and Lup felt her eyes widen somewhat at that.

“Shit, already? Fuck, it’s really happening,” she said, and Lucretia nodded.

“It sure is,” she confirmed, and Lup laughed at that. There was a nice chair in the tent, clearly one of Magnus’s, and Lup sat down in it, not sure what else to do but wait.

“Where’s Taako?” she asked.

“They should have dragged him away from the kitchen to get dressed by now, so he should be here soon,” Lucretia told her, which was a relief. As much as she loved Lucretia, she needed her brother with her today. Pulling out her phone, she still sent him a quick text.

‘Hurry your ass up and get over here, I’m all done up and so painfully alone’ she sent. A few moments later she got a return text from Taako.

‘They said luce was with you?’ he said, and she shorted like that.

‘Damn snitches’ she sent. She could start to hear music now, which meant Johann must be here and all set up. Her and Barry had wanted to try and have some of their own music, but they decided that would be better suited for the reception. As it was the song Johann had started playing was beautiful and somewhat eerie. Even outside of the cave Lup could hear how it was reverberating around the walls.

It wasn’t that much longer before Taako got there, and Lup grinned when she saw him. She’d already approved of the outfit, but it still looked great. Taako had decided on not wearing a dress, as not to take away from hers. So he was in a bright, tailored red suit with a long cape that matched her own.

“Okay, yeah all that shopping was definitely worth it,” he said when he saw her.

“Of course it was,” Lup said, standing up and moving over to give Taako a hug. “You look great bro,” she added.

“This is the only fucking time I’ll play second fiddle to you, so you better savor it,” he said, and she snorted at that. Then the music changed, and Lup glanced down at the clock on her phone in a panic.

“Shit, shit is it starting?” she asked, and Taako scoffed at her panic, rolling his eyes.

“It better be. I got a lot of food being watched by a bunch of vaguely sentient walnuts and I am not leaving it alone longer than absolutely necessary,” he said.

“The food will be  _ fine,” _ Lup insisted, trying to peek out of the tent. She could see the grooms men starting to walk out from another tent in a line, and Lucretia and the rest of her bridesmaids lined up waiting to go as well. Holy shit it was  _ happening. _

“Relax will you? Remember this doesn’t change shit, since you two are  _ already fucking married,” _ Taako said. Lup ducked her head back inside, letting out a soft sigh. He was right. This was just because they wanted to. It would be fine.

She kept glancing outside again, this time so she could see when she was supposed to go. She couldn’t quite see all the way inside of the cave, so she waited a beat once she couldn’t see Ren anymore before holding out her hand. With a grin Taako offered her arm and they started out of the tent and into the cave.

There was more people inside than she expected. Or maybe not more than she expected, but she hadn’t realized how it would look once they were all there and waiting for them. There was a long red carpet they walked down through the lines of chairs, and along the sides of the carpet were candles lighting the path. There were more candles, in giant and elaborate stands along the outside. When she glanced up she could see low lights hanging from the ceiling. She couldn’t help but grin when she noticed that those lights gave off a distinctly red glow.

She could see the two lines of people standing up on either side of the pulpit Merle was standing behind. Barry was off to the side of it, and his eyes were locked on her. Lup wasn’t sure when she started smiling so widely, but it somehow got even wider at the sight of him. He was wearing a dark black shimmering suit that Lup was sure Taako must’ve helped him pick out, and a matching red cape. They really wanted capes to be a thing.

Once they were both up there Taako went and stood off to her side, and then there was a slight pause. Then over the music Lup could hear the beating of wings, and there was a slight bit of scrambled confusion as Queen flew down the aisle and luckily went and landed right on Kravitz’s shoulder like they’d hoped. He untied the ball from her neck, seeming confused about what to do with it for a moment before handing it to Taako and getting back in line. Lup couldn’t help but snort at the sight as Taako frantically checked inside the ball to make sure the rings were still inside.

“Family, friends, a frankly dangerous number of candles, we are gathered here today…” Merle started, and Lup was trying to pay attention but she just kept staring at Barry. She could hear Merle rambling on, but she couldn’t really parse the words.

Before she knew what was happening, Merle said something about vows and then Barry was speaking.

“Lup I- anyone who’s known us for a, for a while can attest to how long I’ve been so fucking in love with you. I never imagined that someone as spectacular and as- as  _ resplendent  _ as you could ever feel the same about me, and I’ve never been more happy to be more wrong about something. I don’t know if this is going to change anything about like, us? But even if it doesn’t I can’t think of a single thing I want to do more than be married to you.”

Lup felt herself blinking to try and hold back tears, and shit. She was supposed to go first so that she could make Barry cry and not the other way around.

“Yeah same… same here babe,” she managed after a moment, which wasn’t the vows she’d been planning on saying in the slightest. Taking a deep breath, she tried to get herself under control so that she could speak properly.

“As- as long as either of us can remember, it was always just Taako and I together. We were the only ones we knew we could rely on, and that- that changed with you. It was- we have so many people now, but you were the first. I can’t image the future without you in it now, it feels- it feels  _ stupid _ not to make it official,” she said. They were both crying now, and Lup  _ knew _ that was going to happen and she couldn’t even be pissed about it.

Taako handed them the rings when Merle prompted, and they were matching straight bands filled with a gleaming opal design. They looked real fucking good paired with their individual engagement rings.

“You may now kiss the-” Merle started to say, but Lup didn’t wait him to finish, grabbing Barry and pulling him into a deep kiss. “You may now kiss,” Merle said again, clearly amused. Lup had no idea how long they stayed kissing, definitely longer than necessary. When they pulled apart they were both laughing and everyone was cheering.

The journey back to the reception hall was hectic and full of congratulations. Before they managed to get very far at all they both ended up getting picked up and hugged by a crying Magnus. To be fair, Lup figured they should have expected that.

As it was, the relatively short trip took a bit longer than it should have, but soon enough they at the reception hall. Instead of going over to their seat like everyone else was, there was a piano and a violin set out that her and Barry went over to. Everyone was unusually quiet as they went over to the instruments and started playing.

There wasn’t anyone dancing or anything like that, they couldn’t have a first dance while Barry was sitting at a piano, but it was nice. Lup could feel herself getting lost in the music, until it felt like there was nothing but here and Barry left anymore.

When the song finished they bowed and everyone clapped as they walked back to their seats. With that servers started to bring the food out, and Lup took the quick moment of distraction to make sure she wasn’t crying anymore.

Trying the food once they brought it out, it tasted and smelled fucking amazing.

“So uh, it good?” Taako asked, like he was actually somewhat nervous about that.

“Of course it is, it’s fucking stellar bro, you made it,” she said. Taako beamed at that and started eating his own food. Lup figured it wouldn’t be long until people started making speeches, and they’d all be ridiculous and embarrassing but she couldn’t really care. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever been more happy than in this moment.

“So uh, what are you two gonna do for the honeymoon?” Taako asked after a moment. Lup froze, giving a quick glance over at Barry, who looked equally surprised by the question.

Letting out a groan, Lup let her head fall forward onto the table. Taako let out a snorting laugh, patting her at the back.

“Didn’t plan that far ahead, huh?” he asked, and Lup sighed, lifting her head back up.

Well, it didn’t matter. They’d figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this mountain took _so much longer_ to climb that it should have but we've done it! we've climbed the whole mountain. I'm really glad to have actually finished this fic, despite the long, long pauses in-between chapters. I do want to thank everyone who's been along and patient with that, and i hope this ending was the least bit satisfying. it's just sappy goodness because lup and barry deserve it. 
> 
> as always, thank you so much for reading and i hope you've enjoyed this fic!


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